Snowy Vineyard & Microbrewery — Attraction in Dalgety

Very disappointing experience I cannot endorse this venue as dog friendly. While chatting with other guests, the venue’s manager approached our group from behind and surprised our german shepherd, who briefly attempted to lunge at her. Max was leashed, fully secured and we corrected the behaviour immediately. Granted, he is a big dog (like many others at the venue I would note), but equally we are experienced dog owners, who have trained him extensively and take him regularly to public venues without incident. There was no harm or adverse outcome from the interaction, indeed several guests at the venue were speaking with us about Max at the time and continued petting him. There was no pattern of repeated lunging behaviour either, this was literally a single interaction lasting 2 seconds with a dog who was surprised.

The manager returned to our table shortly after and demanded that we remove the dog, stating that he was a danger to children (!!) and she had to protect her business reputation. I daresay this would be news to all the kids who play with our dog at the park.

Frankly the reaction was wholly disproportionate to the circumstances and no way in keeping with a “dog friendly” venue. Afternoon ruined unecessarily by small-minded management where the only injury was to personal pride. Max is a loving and playful dog and this simply was not fair.

I hope this message will encourage management to behave more responsibly and with greater consideration towards dog owners in the future. It is a lovely venue and we had been really looking forward to our meal and beer tasting.

(For transparency the manager did refund us without objection but we obviously wanted to stay and enjoy...

Second visit because we had such a great time there several years ago. They had this fantastic chef and I remember a whole smoked trout, surf and turf with a great mushroom sauce and chicken breast with mushroom sauce. She came out and talked with us and served us at the cellar door and explained everything about the alcohol on tasting. We took overseas visitors on this visit and what a disappointment. Does anyone know anything about customer service at this place anymore? We felt like we were an inconvenience. The food was not a patch on last time. All that distance to get there and then be welcomed in such a poor fashion and served below average food at ridiculous prices....

A really great spot, the staff are welcoming and knowledgeable and the vibe of the place is great. The fact it's dog friendly is a real bonus too!

As for the beers, there is a wide variety to choose from. Ales, lagers, porter's and sours as well as the ginger cider which was great on a hot afternoon! I was assured by my fiance the wine was lovely and the sharing board we had topped the afternoon off!

We would happily go back time and time again if we lived in the area, I settled for buying one of the very decent t shirts...