Puritan & Company

The wine list at Puritan & Company reads like a greatest hits album you already own — Kim Crawford, Meiomi, Kendall-Jackson, Coppola. There's nothing here that will make a wine nerd's pulse quicken, but there's also nothing that will embarrass you in front of a date. It's a list built for the room, and the room seems just fine with that.

Twenty-five to forty bottles covering California, Italy, New Zealand, Oregon, Argentina, and France — on paper that sounds like range, but in practice it's a parade of grocery-store staples. The California contingent dominates with J. Lohr, Murphy Goode, and Noble Vines doing the heavy lifting, while Argentina shows up with Altos del Plata Malbec as the lone representative of anything with a little more character. There's a token nod to Oregon via Rainstorm Pinot Gris, which is actually the most interesting regional detour on the list. Gaps are real: no Burgundy, no Rhône, no Riesling, nothing aged, nothing that suggests anyone is particularly passionate about what goes in the glass.

Ten to fifteen pours by the glass is a respectable count, and the spread mirrors the bottle list — workmanlike and approachable. You're picking from the same roster of commercial labels, so don't expect a rotating slate of interesting finds. What you do get is options at multiple price points, which makes it easy to drink reasonably well without committing to a full bottle.