The Left Bank

You don't expect to find a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence tucked into a small hotel dining room in Weston, Vermont — population not very many. But The Left Bank earns it with a wine program that punches well above its weight, built almost entirely around a by-the-glass list that's more interesting than most restaurant bottle lists twice its size. Sommelier Devon Broglie's fingerprints are all over this thing.

Twenty-one labels, all available by the glass — that's the whole move here, and it works. The list leans French (Sancerre, Chinon, Bourgogne, Lalande de Pomerol, Côtes du Rhône, two Provençal rosés) with smart detours into Austrian Grüner Veltliner from Pratsch, Piedmontese Timorasso from La Spinetta, and a Napa-adjacent Spottswoode Lyndenhurst Cab for the crowd that needs one. The regional depth for such a small program is genuinely impressive — this isn't a list built by a distributor rep, it's built by someone who actually drinks wine. The only real gap is a thin showing from the Southern Hemisphere and almost no domestic options outside the Lyndenhurst and a few sparkling outliers.

The entire list is by the glass, which is either a bold program choice or a practical necessity for a small Vermont inn — probably both. At $11–$37, the range is wide enough to accommodate a pre-dinner pour of Hollow Leg Albariño or a serious glass of Spottswoode. The Odd Bird non-alcoholic Grenache-Syrah-Mourvèdre at $14 is a thoughtful inclusion that most restaurants still don't bother with.