Corbin Farms Winery — Attraction in Alabaster

I went to Corbin Farms with a few family members for Bingo night in March 2022. We traveled about 45 miles from my home in Centerpoint, AL. Although the male waiter and the atmosphere was good, we did not have an enjoyable time. I won a game, but I did not receive a bottle of wine that was promised to the winners. The same occured when a family member of mine won a separate Bingo game and was also not given the prize (a bottle of wine). Since 2 people won at the same bingo game, they said we had to "break" the so called "tie" by playing the other winner in a game of "rock, paper, scissors". I was surprised and disappointed that both winners were not awarded a bottle of wine each, or perhaps could have been given a different prize. Needless to say, neither me nor my family member got the best of the "rock, paper, scissors" game so we didn't win anything. I personally spent $46.22 plus $8 tip to the helpful waiter, but business would not honor their word of giving me one bottle of wine for winning. I believe both individuals who won should have received a prize that was promised. So this is why I didn't enjoy the Bingo night experience. It made me not want to visit this Corbin Farms location in Calera, AL again. There was a total of 4 Bingo games played with two of those games having double winners. If everyone who won received the promised prizes, then only 6 bottles of wine would have been awarded. The place was packed with participants and most if not all ordered food and drinks, along with paying extra to play the bingo games. It is just unexceptable to not award all...

The facility was nice and the customer service was great. The wine, however, was another story. I almost could not finish my tasting. I feel bad saying this because the people were so nice, but every wine we tried tasted flat. We tried cabernet sauvignon, merlot, chardonnay, strawberry rose, pinot grigio, and pinot noir. Right off the bat, starting with the cab sauvignon sample, we were advised that a lot of people complained about the flavor of it. The "dry" wines tasted completely flat and had no bite or dryness to them, and the flavor was abysmal, leaving a weird vinegar aftertaste. The sweet wines smelled like candy and literally tasted like old grape/fruit juice or liquid sugar, and gave us both bad heartburn. We've been to numerous wineries and I hate to say this, but the cheap $5 bottles of wine you can get from Target are way more enjoyable than anything we tried here. We came here with the intention of doing tastings and each enjoying a glass of wine afterwards, but we left after the tasting and went to Publix to buy a wine that actually tastes like wine. It was nice of them to offer $6 off a bottle of wine for doing the tasting, but we won't be using it. If you like extremely sugary tasting wine that resembles Arbor Mist more than an actual wine, you may...

We tried all of the dry white and dry red wines (8 total) offered by Corbin. I would best describe the general nose and palate as unrefined and unpleasing. I really tried to like at least 1 of them, but I could not.

Taste is something very personal. Personally, I am used to drinking good quality wine from around the world. For me, it doesn’t necessarily have to be from a reputable region. I have no prejudice when I go to a winery. No expectations, ready to try anything.

If they care about what I think, I would tell the owners to hire outside professionals to help them achieve a better quality product. I have no idea what their process is, but maybe focus should be put on putting less options on the wine product menu, and more on refining a lesser number of products. They produce something like 25 different wines and are a very small outfit. Logic dictates that you can’t get it all right. Less is more.

Then again, a lot of locals seem to like this place. Perhaps it is good by the region’s standards? I don’t know. But if you are a tourist out of state or country, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

Also noted that they don’t grow any of their grape used for wine making.

On the plus side, the staff is nice and the food items were...