Restaurant 301 holds the distinguished Wine Spectator Grand Award.  This prestigious honor is only bestowed upon 74 other restaurants in the world. Our Grand Award Winning Wine list has tremendous depth with over 3500 quality selections. Our vast selection of wines have a variety of strengths from  California, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Oregon, and Germany.

Carter Cellars’ cabernet sauvignon and merlot has been noticed by Wine and Spirit magazine, Wine Spectator magazine, Wine Enthusiast, and Robert Parker receiving scores as high as 96 points from these industry leaders.

The origins of Carter Cellars began in the mid 1980’s when the historic Carter House Victorian was built.  When this small bed and breakfast became too popular for the crowd from the cities up and down the west coast the Hotel Carter was added and a restaurant (the highly regarded Restaurant 301) was needed for the guests.  For the guests at the restaurant Mark Carter began compiling what has become (since 1998) a Wine Spectator Grand Award winning wine list.  He began sourcing the best wines the world had to offer from first growth Bordeaux to the top Napa Cabernet and even the high quality, little-known gems that helped the wine list stand out.  Because of the great recognition of the restaurant and its wine list Mark was able to host winemaker dinners with the likes of Dan Duckhorn and Nils Venge.

A well-known critic once described his wines as “swoon inducing”. While we’re not sure exactly where this quality originates – perhaps in the earth and sun of our low yield vineyards, or in the touch of our masterful winemakers – whatever it is that gives Carter Cellars wines the ability to stir the passions and overwhelm the senses. Carter Cellars is now made at our beautiful winery Envy Wines in Napa Valley (Calistoga) California, a joint venture between wine legend Nils Venge and Mark Carter.