Sarah V.
Yelp
2022 review -
I really wanted to like this place. The reviews on yelp and other social media were great, so I had high hopes, but unfortunately this place fell flat.
When I went, Napa had a limit of 6 per group. I called and asked if there was an off-chance that we could have two groups of four seated in the same area based on availability. I was told that there was no guarantee and that we couldn't be moving between the tables. Totally understood. So, they made two reservations of four for me. Some people in our group weren't participating in the tastings, so I checked to see their policy as their reservation system required you to book everyone who would attend. They told me I just needed to call at least 24 hours in advance and let them know who was participating. No problem.
I called on Wednesday to confirm that 6 out of the 8 were going to participate in the wine tastings on Saturday. They reminded us that we weren't guaranteed to get seated near each other as it depends on availability and reaffirmed that we were not to switch tables. I confirmed that I understood this policy. They called on Friday and left a voicemail asking for me to confirm my party of four. They had made no mention of the other group of 4, and my friend didn't receive any confirmation e-mail (as they said we would) for the other 4. I was confused as I confirmed on Wednesday, but went ahead and called them back. I explained my situation since I wasn't aware if I was talking to the same person who helped me book the spots. The person who responded had attitude that I could feel through the phone for no reason--as if they were annoyed for me even explaining how we were two groups of two who had four people each (6 people of which who were wine tasting). The lady cut me off and said "we are VERY aware of your group". Okay? Sorry for trying to explain the situation as to why I was confused they were calling me to confirm again while still not sending a confirmation e-mail to my friend who held the other reservation?
When we get to our tasting, half of our group got seated while the other half stood around for another 5-10 minutes. We told them to ask if they could get seated at the next table over that had just left, but they were told no. Despite reserving for OUTDOOR wine tasting, they brought my four other friends indoors. One of my friends who went indoors felt uncomfortable as she was specific with outdoor activities, but we didn't feel like we could switch spots as we wanted to respect their rules. There were plenty of tables outside, so I'm not sure why they felt the need to place my friends insides other than to separate us. What was even more frustrating was that the tables outdoors weren't even 6 feet apart, and they had sat strangers next to us. I would have understood if they kept the spot unused or if the seats were 6 ft away, but how is it safer that we have complete strangers sitting next to us compared to people we came with? We had no trouble sitting in the same area and remaining in our spots for other wineries, so I'm unsure why they went through extra trouble to separate us.
Besides that, the experience was definitely sub par. We never got any menus or any direction as to what kind of wine tasting we were going to experience. Someone came to our table, told us the first wine name and left. No description of the wine, the notes we should be tasting, or background story whatsoever. After we finished with the first pour, which was already small compared to other wineries, the person comes back and asks us if we're on (insert wine name here). We tell him that we're unaware of which one we were supposed to be on because we didn't get any menu of some sort. His response? "Oh whoops". We then found out that we would have missed our second pour if this little hiccup wasn't discovered. This service was pretty much consistent throughout the rest of the tasting--the person hardly spent any time describing the wines to us and the pours were minimal. To top it off, the wines weren't great. We usually like to buy at least a bottle of our most favorite wine at tastings but none hit the mark. I saw a few reviews in which people described the wine as similar to grocery stores, and I'd have to agree. I actually ended up giving most of my pours to my other friend as I didn't really enjoy them. For $45, that was hugely disappointing.
The grounds are extremely beauty--that was basically the only pro to my experience here. Unless people just wanted to come take pictures here, I would recommend skipping over this place. The experience and the price were just not worth the time and money spent here.