El Paso

Thyme is the real deal for El Paso — a serious wine program with serious staff in a city where that's genuinely rare. The markups sting a little and the list skews conservative, but when you're this well-executed, we're not complaining too loudly.

Taft Diaz is the best wine list in El Paso and it's not particularly close — a boutique hotel restaurant with the ambition to stock DRC and Lynch-Bages is the kind of wild card this city didn't know it needed. If you're passing through or live in the 915, this is worth a reservation specifically for the bottle list.

Café Central is doing something genuinely impressive for El Paso — a deeply stocked, properly stored, Wine Spectator-recognized list in a room that actually deserves it. The markups keep it from being a steal, but this is the best place to drink wine in the city and it isn't particularly close.