It’s not easy to find a good glass of wine when traveling. Eateries 
along the Interstates and even the Blue Highways usually pay more attention to soft drinks and beer than wine. Wine selections on airlines are more encouraging, especially if you’re lucky enough to fly business or first class. And then there’s the wine list in the dining car on Amtrak, the nation’s premier railroad train.
Recently, my wife and I had occasion to travel by Amtrak from Pennsylvania to California in a compartment that Amtrak calls a ‘Bedroom.’ It was the best accommodation you could book for that Amtrak trip, presumably equivalent to flying First Class on a commercial airline. We boarded at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station (the one made famous in the movie ‘Witness’) and rumbled down the Atlantic corridor to Washington, D.C., where we boarded the Capitol Limited to Chicago. Following a five-hour lay over in the aptly-named Windy City, we boarded the California Zephyr for a scenic ride across the plains to Denver, over the snow-covered Rockies, across the Great Salt Lake, the high desert of Nevada, over the snow-capped Sierras, past Sacramento and into Emeryville, California, a small town next to Oakland.
Amtrak is punctual and we departed and arrived at the various stops on time and even rolled into Emeryville at the end of the trip 
an hour early. Try that on a plane today. The trip took three and one-half days and we ate all of our meals in the Dining Car. Now, if you are of an age to remember when railroad dining was among the best around, treasure your memories, because Amtrak food today is little better than Denny’s on a bad day. The food is mostly pre-cooked (scrambled eggs so dry they had dust on them) somewhere else and mostly warmed up on the train and served on plastic everything, except curiously the stainless steel flatware. Two items that helped to pass the time were Green Mountain coffee and Haagen Dazs ice cream.
I could go on about the meals we were served on Amtrak, but this is about Amtrak wine, or what passes for a wine list. The wine selections, along with the other beverages, were on the back of a shiny menu card that looked like one you’d be handed in a diner. The wine choices included Cavit 2007 Italy Pinot Grigio, Meridian 2007 Central Coast Chardonnay, Santa Emma 2007 Chile Merlot and Hahn Estate 2006 Central Coast Cabernet Sauvignon, all in 375ml bottles for $13 each. Penfolds 2006 Koonunga Hill Australia Shiraz and Chateau Ste. Michelle 2007 Washington Riesling were available for a reasonable $5 by the glass.
If beer helps you get through the night rockin’ and rollin’ in an upper berth, Amtrak offers Bud, Bud Lite, Miller and Miller Lite for $4.50 a bottle and for $1 more you could pop the cap on Corona, Heineken or Sam Adams. Pre-mixed cocktails cost $6. All of the beverages were available in the Dining Car and the Lounge Car. The Dining Car stopped serving at about 9 p.m. and the Lounge Car closed the bar around Midnight.
Storage is a problem on trains (but not as restricted as on airplanes) and vibration is the norm as aging trains rumble over aging tracks, so it’s understandable that Amtrak trains would not stock an extensive wine list, especially of older more delicate wines. So, given the unique circumstances, the Amtrak Mini-Wine List wasn’t all that bad.
This summer, why not see the USA from an Amtrak train and if your trip will be of any distance, book a Bedroom, or at the least a Roomette; sitting up for a couple of days in Coach may be less expensive but it’s bad for your soul, not to mention your back. Oh yeah, even though the fare for a Bedroom comes with meals (although not wine or other beverages), if you’re picky about your wine and food, you might want to pack along enough wine and food to enjoy in the privacy of your private compartment.
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