Celebrations Restaurant & Bar
Missouri's Best Wine List You've Never Heard Of
Cape Girardeau · Cape Girardeau · American, Seasonal · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed April 8, 2026
Wingman Metrics
First Impression
Walking into a restored 1850s house in Cape Girardeau and finding a 200-plus bottle wine list anchored by serious California and Burgundy producers is a genuine surprise — the good kind. This is not a list assembled by someone who called a distributor and said 'just send the usual.' Someone here actually cares, and that someone has a name: Eric Atkinson, the in-house sommelier who holds a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence dating back to 2019.
Selection Deep Dive
The list leans hard into California Cabernet and Pinot Noir — Caymus, Jordan, Stag's Leap, and Beringer Private Reserve give the Napa crowd plenty to love — but the real backbone is the French and Oregon sections. Louis Jadot and Joseph Drouhin anchor a respectable Burgundy and Chablis presence, while Domaine Drouhin Oregon and Willamette Valley Vineyards round out the cool-climate Pinot Noir angle with some depth. Flowers Vineyard makes an appearance for Sonoma Coast representation, which tells us this list isn't just chasing safe brand recognition. Gaps? Southern Hemisphere and anything remotely esoteric are probably thin, but for a fine dining room in southeast Missouri, the range is genuinely impressive.
By the Glass
With 20 to 35 by-the-glass options, this program is generous by any standard outside a major metro wine bar. The breadth means you can move through a meal without committing to a bottle, and with a sommelier on staff, the pours are likely rotated and maintained with some intention. We'd trust Eric to steer you toward whatever's open and drinking well right now.
Willamette Valley Vineyards Pinot Noir — $40
Oregon Pinot at this quality tier often gets marked up aggressively in fine dining, but Willamette Valley Vineyards consistently overdelivers for the price. If it's landing in the lower end of the bottle range here, it's the most honest pour on the list.
Joseph Drouhin Chablis
Everyone at the table is ordering the Caymus Cab, and that's fine. But the Drouhin Chablis is the move if you're starting with the Baked Salmon or anything with brightness on the plate. Pure, mineral, and almost always underordered in rooms full of red wine drinkers.
Caymus Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon
Caymus is not a bad wine — it's just a wine that every restaurant in America marks up because they know people will order it by name. You're paying for the label recognition here. Jordan or Stag's Leap will drink just as well and leave more money in your pocket.
Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir + Duck Breast
Duck wants something with enough fruit to match the richness but enough acid and earth to cut through the fat. Drouhin Oregon sits right in that lane — Burgundian in structure, Willamette in fruit weight. It's the exact pairing you'd hope a sommelier would suggest, and here you can actually ask one.
🔥 The Bottom Line
Celebrations is the kind of restaurant that makes you question your assumptions about where serious wine lists live. In a college and river town in Missouri, inside a 170-year-old house, Eric Atkinson has built something that earns its Wine Spectator hardware — we'd send anyone here without hesitation.
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