71Above Restaurant & Skylounge
Sky-high ambitions, sky-high list to match
Downtown Los Angeles · Los Angeles · American · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed April 7, 2026
Wingman Metrics
First Impression
You're on the 71st floor of a downtown LA skyscraper and the wine list arrives like it knows exactly where it is — thick, confident, and not apologizing for anything. The range runs from entry-level pours to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which tells you immediately this place is playing a different game than the restaurant two floors below street level. Wine Spectator has handed them a Best of Award of Excellence every year since 2017, and the list earns it.
Selection Deep Dive
The 400-600 bottle list leans hard into its four pillars — Burgundy, broader France, California, and Italy — and the depth is real. You've got Louis Jadot alongside Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet, Kistler Vine Hill Chardonnay holding court next to Opus One, and Antinori Tignanello representing Tuscany with authority. The California section is particularly strong, stacking household names like Caymus Special Selection and Screaming Eagle next to more composed choices. Where the list thins out is anywhere outside those four lanes — if you're hunting New World outside California or anything from Spain or the Southern Hemisphere, you're mostly on your own.
By the Glass
Twenty to thirty-five options by the glass is a serious program, with pours running $16 to $45 — a range wide enough to accommodate a pre-dinner Chardonnay or a serious red to go with that short rib. The Wednesday half-price wine night is the real headline: at 50% off, some of those glass pours become genuinely excellent value in an otherwise premium-priced room. We'd love to see more rotation to keep regulars engaged, but the sheer volume of options makes this a by-the-glass program worth leaning into.
Kistler Vine Hill Chardonnay 2021 — $185
Kistler is one of California's most respected Chardonnay producers and Vine Hill is a benchmark bottling. At $185 in a room where the ceiling is four figures and the views are priceless, this is the bottle that hits the sweet spot between splurge and sanity — especially on a Wednesday.
Antinori Tignanello
Everyone at the next table is ordering the Opus One or the Screaming Eagle, and Tignanello is sitting there quietly being one of Italy's most compelling Super Tuscans. It's the kind of wine that rewards people who actually read the list instead of ordering on name recognition.
Caymus Vineyards Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon
Caymus Special Selection is widely distributed and easy to find retail. In a list with this much depth — actual Burgundy, Gaja Barbaresco, Leflaive — spending your budget here feels like ordering a well cocktail at a craft bar. The restaurant can do better for you, and so can you.
Gaja Barbaresco 2019 + Short rib with bone marrow
Barbaresco's Nebbiolo grip and savory earthiness cuts straight through the fat in bone marrow while standing up to the braised richness of short rib. Gaja is one of Piedmont's defining producers and the 2019 vintage has the structure to handle this dish without getting buried by it.
Wednesday — Half-price wine by the glass every Wednesday — the single best reason to build your week around a mid-week dinner at 71Above.
🔥 The Bottom Line
71Above is a special-occasion room with a wine list that actually justifies the occasion — deep, well-curated, and anchored by serious producers across Burgundy, California, and Italy. The markups are steep and there's no sommelier to navigate it with you, but hit it on a Wednesday and the half-price glass program turns one of LA's most dramatic dining rooms into a genuinely smart wine stop.
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