Mermaid Winery & Restaurant

Walking into a winery-restaurant in Chesapeake, Virginia, you brace yourself for an all-house-wine situation with nowhere to hide. But Mermaid's list opens up to 66 labels and 53 by-the-glass options — a number that genuinely stops you mid-scroll. This isn't a vanity list; there's real range here, and the pricing doesn't immediately make you want to leave.

The house Mermaid Winery lineup anchors the list — Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the Siren's White all come in at $25–$40 a bottle, which is a reasonable ask for an urban winery's own production. Beyond that, they've built out a thoughtful by-the-glass program that pulls from New Zealand (Lake Chalice Skye Sauvignon Blanc, Wither Hills), the Loire (Vinum Cellars Chenin Blanc), Alsace (Villa Wolf Gewurztraminer), and the Rhône-adjacent (Domaine Lafage Novellum Chardonnay), which is a more interesting geography lesson than you'd expect from this zip code. The sparkling section has three separate Proseccos and an L. Mawby Brut Rosé from Michigan, which is a wild and correct choice. Red depth is harder to assess from what's visible, but the white and sparkling bench is genuinely strong.

Fifty-three by-the-glass options is a headline number, and unlike most lists that pad that count with duplicates and whatever's open, Mermaid's glass program actually delivers variety — Old World whites, New World whites, sparkling, and rosé all get real representation. The Paul Anheuser Blanc de Noir 2023 and Folk Machine White Light 2025 showing up on a Virginia winery list is the kind of thing that earns credibility. Glass prices run $9–$17, which in 2024 is genuinely fair.