Fredericksburg Winery

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

I am willing to try anything once. At least thats what I like to tell myself. My trip to the Fredericksburg Winery made me not want to take my own advice. First off, I know quite a bit about wine, as I make a living working at one of the premier restaurants in Texas and having advanced wine knowledge and a decent palate is critical to my job, so I know what Im talking about. That said, this place is a train wreck. Walking inside, you get the impression that it occupied a space that at one point must have been a small Hobby Lobby or Michael’s. The perimeter of the store was filled to capacity of blank white boxes that I later realized was their entire inventory of wine. So, we walk up to the counter and the woman began by telling us what we liked. Not asking...she TOLD us what "us" Texans liked. She made it known that her husband, the wine maker, was a diabetic, and that her favorite foods were lasagna and BBQ chicken. She repeated herself at least six times, so I guess that was important enough to put in this review. So heres how their tasting works (and Im not exagerating): they have like sixteen bottles lines up from left to right, "dryest" to sweetest. According to the woman, you are only allowed to progress from left to right and you are NOT allowed to go back and try something if you skipped over it. It wouldn’t have mattered if you were a wine snob or Mark Cuban...that was her policy and wasn’t willing to compromise for anyone. So I try the "driest" wine they had and the initial sensation was a HUGE sugar bomb. It reeked of over-ripe fruit and finished with a sugary after-taste, which tells me that the grapes were more than likely frozen at one point before fermentation. I jumped to the seventh bottle, and was again surprised at how sweet and ripe their wine was. I told her that her dry wines were extremely sweet and she looked at me in awe as if to tell me that her husband has been making the same wine since the 70s so how dare I tell her how her wine tastes? Because she was giving off that "Hes been making wine since before you were born" attitude, I requested to try a bottle that I had skipped over to see how shes react. She threw a fit and restated her policy three times I reminded her that she was risking losing a sale by not letting me try the wine; she simply refused…it was pretty funny actually. I was about to walk out, but my girlfriend who was with me wasnt done tasting the free wine (she cant tell the difference between bad and really bad wine). Behaving myself, I shut up and sipped the wine like some kind of obedient child, all the while listening to her tell me that practically every bottle of wine they had goes with lasagna and BBQ chicken.....and that her husband is a diabetic.....cause once wasn’t enough. At the end of the tasting, I bought one bottle of their dry red and told her that i would demonstrate it to my friends as an example of what wine shouldnt taste like. So, the bottom line is that their wine is horribly made, not even good enough to cook with, and definitely NOT worth your time and money. Flatly, I dont want their wine representing my state. There’s an obvious lack of care and definitely there is no integrity in the product, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to sell it for the prices they’re asking for. I’m not just saying this because I had a horrible experience, but their wine cannot stand on their own...I don’t care about what some BS USA Today review says. Their wine sucks. There are several other wineries and vineyards around that are worth visiting and produce wine that is representative of Texas, and not some hack family that thinks that they know what theyre doing. Im not trying to be rude, just honest. I talked about my experience with a couple of other wineries and they had also heard similar stories about that woman. Apparently in Fredericksburg, shes known as the "Wine Nazi." Go figure...

A

A Private User

It looks like people already have met Debbie in this review. I believe my girl friend and I, as well as the other couple we were with met the same woman. We were in the "lovers trail" through the texas hill country- where we could explore all 33 wineries, with a minimum of 3 tastes. We had amazing experiences at three locations already, then regretfully, we had to go to this winery and meet her. Let me just start out with our impression of the place- an old liquor store with clear glass windows, but just serving poor quality wine coming out of probably a bathtub. It already seemed lame from the start. Then we met this woman, who wouldnt even look us in our eyes, she kept scanning around at other i guess, "important" customers. I hate to play the race card, especially this day and age, but I honestly felt that it was because we were brown. Besides that, as Robert wrote in july 2011(look below), she was like the soup nazi. She mentioned that we can only taste the wine in the particular order theyve been placed. We already knew the general rule- u drink the sweetest wine at the end, but I thought it was just a suggestion, NOT enforced! I thought we lived in a free society, free to choose how we least drink our wine...cmon really?? we tried to accommodate, we drank a couple sips, but the other couple we were with wanted to taste the wine we just had but since they passed that one up already in the line, the wine NAZI wouldnt allow them to go back. (oh get this- she wouldnt even allow us to share the glass we had with them). She was rude, condescending, and ruined our day...then she had the audacity to say that the "tastes were free"- guess the lady doesnt know that we have to PAY for the wine trail...what a JOKE, this woman is. we were all so irate, we walked out of there not finishing our taste. I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND THIS PLACE TO ANYONE. The wine was okay, even their couple "price winning" wines were not worth the price or taste. I have a strong feeling their "price winning" wines were in a poor competition, of little value. Fredricksburg should ban them from using their name- because this winery is such a disgrace to that nice town! I would give them zero stars if I could for the experience Ive had, but since i cant- i guess 1 star will have to do. DONT GO TO FREDRICKSBURG WINERIES- and if u for any reason wind up there- AVOID THE WOMAN WITH THE THICK glasses- she obviously has issues....

BE

Ben Lurker

Ok so I guess Im just not a wine snob, I actually like this place and they produce one of mine and my friends favorite wines. My wife and I go there every time we stop in fredericksburg. We visit with Jack and he has always been helpfull and friendly with us everytime weve been there. Yes they do have their policy of once you start with the drys and move up you cant go back, but hey its their place and I can accept that. Its not like they dont tell you that up front. If you relax and just go with it youll have a good time, we always do. Now I will admit that I do not have some highly refined palate, I dont know a lot about wines, and I generally tend to prefer sweeter wines. But honestly I dont care, I know what I like and I know what I dont, I can tell you that they have some wines that I love and they have some that I dont. But thats the same with any of the other vinyards Ive been to in Fredericksburg and weve been to all of them. Just have an open mind and be willing to experience the different types they have. Now as for the claims of them being racists I have never experienced that, my wife is an immagrant from Africa and and Im a native born Texan and as such we are a bi-racial couple. We have never had a problem there and frankly they are always excited to see my wife and I. It could be possible in the experiences noted in the other review was that the people working there meant they couldnt accomodate a large group, which honestly is more like it. They only have a few people working the counters and it wouldnt be hard for people to walk out with wine they hadnt paid for. They dont keep it locked up behind the counters and it is out for anyone to handle. My guess is that is why they said they couldnt accomadate your group not anything based on a racial basis. Now as for the lady there, I honestly couldnt tell you anything. I have never had any experience with her, I have always dealt with Jack and he has always been great. So all things aside If youre open minded and willing to have a good time give em a shot, you may be surprised.

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