The Manor on Golden Pond

You're sitting in a candlelit dining room overlooking Squam Lake and the wine list arrives — it's the kind of list that matches the room perfectly: composed, unfussy, and not trying to impress you with obscurity. France and California anchor everything, which is exactly what you'd expect from a property that's held a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence since 1996. This isn't a destination wine program, but it's a genuinely good one.

The 150-250 bottle list plays its lane well, leaning hard into recognizable French and California names — Louis Jadot representing Burgundy, Caymus and Stag's Leap covering the Napa Cab crowd, and Cakebread Cellars holding down Chardonnay duty. Jordan makes an appearance too, which tells you this list is built for a guest who wants quality without homework. There are real gaps — no serious Rhône presence, no Italian depth, nothing from the Southern Hemisphere — but what's here is well-chosen and correctly stored. For a romantic inn in rural New Hampshire, this is punching above its weight class.

Twelve to eighteen options by the glass is genuinely respectable for a property this size, and the $12–$18 price range is fair given the setting. We'd expect the usual suspects to dominate the pour list — Chardonnay, Cab, maybe a light red — but the breadth means you can get through a whole evening without committing to a bottle if that's your move.