Hallcrest Vineyards and Santa Cruz Scrumpy Cider — Attraction in California

This review is about events at Hallcrest Vineyards. There's more bad than should be possible from the location. The vineyards themselves are in a beautiful place in the Santa Cruz Mountains, but the event venue is in the back behind the vats and feels like the farm boneyard. That's OK, but the stage / audience arrangement is horrible for acoustics and especially for viewing. The stage is raised about 6" and is at the uphill side of a slanted paved audience zone, and the seat rows are aligned at a 45 degree angle to the stage, so it's difficult enough to see to begin with, even with a small audience. If you get there early, you have a hard time finding two adjacent seats with a decent view. That's hard to bungle in such a small space, but there it is.

But here's the kicker (and the reason that I write this review): As people arrive 30, 40, 50 minutes late, the talkative gate keeper brings in extra chairs, and he puts them right up front, completely blocking the view of people who chose their seats before the show began. Now you see the show, now you don't. Annoying? Very!

People intrinsically don't like other people taking cuts, especially when it blocks what they paid to see, and there's nowhere else to sit. It ruins the vibe and distracts far too much from the music.

Simple solution: Set up all the chairs correctly before the show begins and let people know what they're getting when they sit down. How...

Note: this review is for the staff at Hallcrest Vineyards, not the event I attended (which was great).

I came here to celebrate my beautiful Slavic culture and to show support for fellow Ukrainians at a wonderful event. There were a lot of people, (which was amazing to see), a raffle, food and ways to donate to charity.

During the celebration of our traditional dance, three staff members [not associated with the vendors at the event, were not Ukrainian and carrying large clear plastic bags of what looked to be cups] blatantly and disrespectfully walked across the dance area.

As this happened, one woman had sarcastically said, "thank you" (to clearly demonstrate that these guys were rudely interrupting the celebration) to which one of the staff members sarcastic replied "you're welcome." I found this extremely rude and antagonist during a celebration of my culture.

Edit (replying to the post below from Hallcrest): While I appreciate the followup, I’m not sure that there “hearts were in the right places” — it seemed a bit of common sense was lacking as well as a rude reply to an event attendee. For comparison, would they be excused if they exhibited the same behavior if they walked through a Native American...

I am totally blown away by the graciousness and generosity of the entire Hallcrest Vineyards family. We volunteered at the Ukraine fundraiser hosted by Hallcrest and it was incredible to see how much impact a business that cares can make on the world. The vineyard offered it’s beautiful setting and scenery while the owners and staff all volunteered their time and donated half of their sales for a cause that a very large portion of the population cares about, based on the hundreds of people that showed up. There was delicious wine and cider, Ukrainian folk dancing and music by Zoloti Maky, beautiful flower crowns weaved by local florist Swallows Secret Garden, even Ukrainian food by Chicken Foot! It was a busy day with something fun happening in every corner of the vineyard, with all the vendors volunteering their time for the enjoyment of the many attendees who wanted to show and raise support for Ukraine by celebrating Ukrainian culture with their friends and families! It’s things like this that can...