Best Restaurants For Wine 2018: CA Has 20 Grand Award Winners

CALIFORNIA — Cheers, California! Wine Spectator, one of the world’s leading authorities on wine, has assembled its 2018 list of the Best Restaurants for Wine, based not only on the breadth of vintages in their cellars but also how well wine is paired with entrees. In California, 411 restaurants made the prestigious list of 3,759 restaurants worldwide with outstanding wine selections.

The lifestyle magazine on wine and wine culture gave awards across three categories — Award of Excellence, Best of Award of Excellence and the Grand Award, which went to only 91 restaurants around the world. Wine Spectator experts inspect all candidates for the Grand Award to evaluate both quality of the dining experience and the cellar.

This award is given to restaurants with world-class cellars and wine lists that typically feature 1,000 or more selections, a breadth of top producers, and outstanding depth in mature vintages and selection of large-format bottles. Restaurants in this category are also evaluated on the presentation of the wine list and the harmony with the menu.

In California, 20 restaurants won the Grand Award, 133 received the Best of Award of Excellence and 258 received the Award of Excellence. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news from your California neighborhood. Also, download the free Patch iPhone appor free Patch Android app. Also, be sure to follow your local Patch on Facebook!)

Nationwide, there are 91 Wine Spectator Grand Award listings; here are those in California:

1. Acquerello, San Francisco
2. Addison, San Diego
3. Capo, Santa Monica
4. La Toque, Napa
5. Madera, Menlo Park
6. Murray Circle Restaurant, Sausalito
7. Patina, Los Angeles
8. Restaurant 301 At The Hotel Carter, Eureka
9. Restaurant Gary Danko, San Francisco
10. Saison, San Francisco
11. Sierra Mar, Big Sur
12. Spago Beverly Hills
13. Spruce, San Francisco
14. Studio, Laguna Beach
15. The French Laundry, Yountville, Napa Valley
16. The Plumed Horse, Saratoga, Silicon Valley
17. The Restaurant At Meadowood, St. Helena, Napa Valley
18. The Stonehouse, Santa Barbara
19. The Village Pub, Woodside, Silicon Valley
20. Wally’s Beverly Hills

Wine Spectator’s 2018 Restaurant Award winners range from neighborhood wine bars that serve small plates to opulent palaces with star chefs and elaborate tasting menus. Getting a mention on it is a pretty big deal for the restaurants.

“A Wine Spectator award tells our guests — current and potential — that our program has been vetted by a panel of experts and deemed amongst the best in the world,” Erik Segelbaum, corporate wine director for the Starr Restaurants group, said in a news release.

Segelbaum, whose restaurants won 16 Wine Spectator awards this year, said they tell “wine-loving guests that visiting one of our restaurants is time and money well spent.” The awards are well regarded domestically and internationally, he said.

“There is no doubt that Wine Spectator reviews and awards are held in the highest regard in the domestic and international community,” he said in the release. “Awards of this nature show our wine-loving guests that visiting one of our restaurants is time and money well spent.”

The restaurants recognized by Wine Spectator are in all 50 U.S. states and 75 countries.

Click here see all the Grand Award winners.

Click here to peruse all winners by metropolitan area.

Photo via Shutterstock / media_digital