Washington Inn

Walking into the Washington Inn, the wine list lands on your table like a statement — 300 to 500 bottles deep, curated with intention, covering California, France, Italy, and Spain without any of the filler you'd expect from a Victorian inn in a beach town. This is not a list assembled by someone who called a distributor rep and said 'give me the usual.' There's a sommelier here, April Fain, and her fingerprints are all over it.

California is the anchor, and it earns that position — Caymus, Jordan, Silver Oak, Stag's Leap, and Opus One cover the crowd-pleasing Cab corridor while still offering real range in quality tier. France shows up seriously with Château Margaux and Louis Jadot Burgundy, giving the list genuine old-world weight. Italy punches hard with Antinori Super Tuscans and Sassicaia, and Spain rounds things out with the benchmark Vega Sicilia Unico — a wine that has no business being on a Cape May wine list and yet here it is. The only gap we'd note is that the list skews heavily toward big reds and prestige names; if you're hunting natural wine or lighter-touch picks, you may have to dig.

Twenty to thirty-five by-the-glass options is a generous pour program for a restaurant of this size, and the price range of $12 to $22 is reasonable given what's on offer. We'd expect April Fain to keep the glass list rotating and representative of the broader cellar rather than just defaulting to the same workhorse wines every season. If you're undecided, start there — it's a low-risk way to audition the list before committing to a bottle.