Best Wine Selection

We can go to the store and pick up a nice low-end bottle of Kendall-Jackson wine for, say, $12, so why would we want to sip the same wine at the inflated restaurant markup of $35? Exactly. So in choosing the best wine selection, we went looking not just for an exhaustive list of bottles but for one that featured choice and fair prices combined with some out-of-the-ordinary finds. We discovered just such a splendid combination at Pineapple Grill. We knew we were onto something right off the bat when a quick scan of the list brought us to the section for rosé (or blush) wines, and instead of the standard Sutter Home or Beringer white zinfandel, we found bottles of Buehler white zin from Napa Valley ($17.69) and Saintsbury vin gris pinot noir ($18.59) from Carneros. And by using various area wine distributors rather than shacking up with one exclusively, Pineapple's proprietors have kept out of a rut, offering a sprinkling of Old World favorites (Chateau Des Rontets' $37.83 pouilly-fuissé and Georges du Boeuf's $19.91 Beaujolais-Villages from France, for example) amid a wide variety of New World vintages. Notable on the list of whites are a Roberta Pecota Sauvignon Blanc ($18.59) and a Matanzas Creek chardonnay ($49.43), both from Sonoma, and a couple of selections from California vintner Rabbit Ridge. A Stags' Leap cab ($52.26) from Napa jumps off the list of reds. You might find some of these by snooping around nicer liquor emporiums, but you won't beat the Pineapple prices by much, and these bottles certainly won't turn up on grocery-store shelves.