Bricks Restaurant & Wine Bar

Walk into Bricks and the wine list feels like it was put together by someone who actually drinks wine — not just someone who ordered whatever the distributor rep pushed that month. A 100-plus bottle list in downtown Reno with real Portuguese and Spanish representation is a legitimate differentiator. The warm booth-heavy room sets the right expectations: this is a place that takes wine seriously without taking itself too seriously.

California and the Pacific Northwest anchor the list the way you'd expect from a Nevada restaurant, but the real character comes from the Iberian Peninsula section. Bricks stocks a legitimate fortified wine program — Dow's 10yr Tawny, Taylor Fladgate 20yr Tawny, Fonseca Bin 27, Niepoort Porto, and a Hartley & Gibson's Amontillado Sherry — which is the kind of thing you'd expect at a wine bar in Lisbon, not a steakhouse in Reno. The rest of the list covers enough ground to satisfy most tables without overwhelming anyone. If there's a gap, it's on the depth of Old World still wines — the Portuguese and Spanish angle is almost exclusively dessert and fortified, which leaves the table-wine portion feeling a bit California-centric.

Twenty to thirty glass pours is a serious commitment, and Bricks doesn't squander it. The BTG program includes the fortified wines, which is a smart move — it lets people experiment without committing to a full bottle of something unfamiliar. We'd love to see more rotation to keep regulars guessing, but the range here is notably broader than what most Reno restaurants bother with.