Contessa Wine Cellars — Attraction in Coloma Charter Township

The entire experience at Contessa was awkward, extremely uncomfortable and overvall horrible. First, none of us like the wine. We had sweet wine livers and dry red/white wine lovers. Walked in to find a busy location which is to be expected. Woman behind the bar greets us friendly and tells us to take a seat and they will be with us shortly. Man (later to find out is the owner) comes over and begins directing traffic. His demeanor was awkward and agressive in body language and tone. Three men begin walking out and owner confronted the men and was upset that they took off and let us know. At the bar we decide to do 2 tastings yet there were three individuals (two would share). Charged us for three tastings at the end of it all. Before pouring our last wine he came up to us telling us others needed to have access to the bar so we needed to move away from the bar to taste. We had empty glasses and he just looked at us so we asked for our last tasting. All 3 of us wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. We should have followed suit and left when the 3 men did ahead of us. We will never return to this winery as it was the worst experience in...

Wine was about par for the area. Did not try anything sweet so I can not comment on that. Decor was a little dated but quaint, deck has a great view. Negatives of the visit was the man doing our tasting was very flustered by the crowd. He was slow in getting from customer to customer with non wine related small talk. Also stopped to overexplain to multiple groups of people waiting that they aren't used to crowds and they can't accommodate them for a few more minutes and on and on. The crowd was maybe 30 people and if he had focused on pouring and talking wine with the customers he had he could have turned over the tasting groups twice as fast and still given a good experience. Wasn't bad just out of his element. Then when we were told we couldn't buy a bottle to sit out on the patio and enjoy with the 4 of us, and that they only sold by the glass (to maximize profits no doubt) we decided we had seen enough. Probably a good experience during a slower time but with all of the other options we probably...

First I should caveat that we went off-season so there was just my wife, me, the vineyard cat and Tony (owner). So, from the standpoint of customer service and attention, we were incredibly spoiled. Next, the wine itself is very good. Most of my wine tasting experience is from Napa and Oregon where bottles are often $80+ and tasting fees are upwards $25/ea. the tasting fee at Contessa Is only $5 and the quality of the wines exceeded expectations. The $30 cab franc is exceptional and rivals bottles I've tried at a much higher price point. Then you get into even more reasonably priced bottles and the complexity and smoothness remains. We left completely satisfied and with 3/4 of a case of wine that we would serve even our most picky guest. We will be back not only for the wine but for the conversation and the view. End to end, a great experience and I would recommend Contessa to anyone looking for a great wine and a comfortable...