The Fortunate Glass

The wine list at The Fortunate Glass hits differently than you'd expect from a coastal North Carolina dining room — 200-plus bottles anchored by California, France, and Italy, with names that make you do a double-take. This is a serious list in a town that mostly serves you oaky Chardonnay and calls it a day. Wine Spectator has been handing them a Best of Award of Excellence since 2022, and flipping through this list, it's not hard to see why.

California dominates the spine of this list with heavy hitters like Caymus, Jordan, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Kistler, and Duckhorn doing the work — recognizable names that give the crowd what it wants, but executed with genuine depth rather than lazy default picks. France shows up with Louis Jadot Burgundy and Chateau Margaux anchoring the prestige tier, while Italy brings Antinori Tignanello and Gaja Barbaresco, two bottles that signal someone in this building actually cares. The big gap is beyond those three regions — if you're hunting for Iberian wines, German Rieslings, or anything from the Southern Hemisphere, you're largely out of luck. Still, 200-plus bottles with this caliber of producer is a real accomplishment for a restaurant of this size in this market.

Twenty to thirty-five glass pours is an impressive spread — most places at this tier offer you eight options and consider themselves generous. We don't have the full by-the-glass rundown, but a list this size almost certainly rotates some of those California and French names through the program. If Kistler Chardonnay or Duckhorn Merlot are available by the glass on any given night, you order them without hesitation.