Fredericksburg Winery — Attraction in Fredericksburg

Backstory: About six months prior my parents drove four hours up to see me, so my coworker and I took them to Fredericksburg. In walking around we stumbled across this place so we walked in. Rick and Cord(sorry if misspelled) were behind the counter and were very friendly and great conversationalists. Long story short we had a blast and even got to taste an extra wine or two.

Flash forward to today: My dad drove up by himself to spend the day with me. He has a buddy going into the wine business so he wanted to learn more. What better place than Fredericksburg? I’m upset that this was our first stop. We walk in shortly before 5 expecting the same atmosphere as last time.

Upon walking in there’s an older lady with long gray hair behind the counter. Immediately she looks annoyed that we’re walking in. When we tell her we want to do a tasting she essentially rushes us to pick our wines. When we ask how Rick and his Harley are doing, she is very quick to inform us that he was NEVER an employee there, did not make a paycheck and strictly a volunteer. Weird, but okay.

As we pick our wines, we make sure to pick different ones so my dad would have a bigger section to taste since he’s new to the wine world. My dad, being the jokester that he is, playfully asks ME why my first glass was slightly bigger than mine. To which this lady responds, “well the better you behave the bigger the pour you get. If you frustrate me, the glass will be smaller.” I’m sorry, what?

As we had our wine we swapped with each other to see what the other thought. Before we even get finished with one glass this lady cuts us off mid conversation (mid-laugh, honestly) to tell us that she’s going to teach us about “proper wine etiquette,” and points to my dad and says “because the way you’re behaving is frustrating me and if that continues, we’re done with the wine tasting,” to which she says that if we can’t follow the rules she won’t help us. Excuse me?

We put our glasses down and left. I’m doubly upset because last time I was here, there was a wine I really really loved that I wanted to have at my fiancé and I’s wedding when we finally get married. But since we were blatantly disrespected I’m going to find another wine elsewhere. I’m going to be leaving Texas soon and this was my dad’s and I’s last chance to have a great experience in Fredericksburg and I’m upset this lady had to tarnish that memory.

Whoever is management needs to do a serious evaluation on their employees. I’ve had rude servers, service reps and even sales associates, but I’ve never been this disrespected in my life. If you don’t have the patience to be in this business (especially wine, where you’re almost guaranteed to get already tipsy customers coming in), then you need to find a...

Ok so I guess I'm 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 we've been there. Yes they do have their policy of once you start with the drys and move up you can't go back, but hey it's their place and I can accept that. It's not like they don't tell you that up front. If you relax and just go with it you'll have a good time, we always do. Now I will admit that I do not have some highly refined palate, I don't know a lot about wines, and I generally tend to prefer sweeter wines. But honestly I don't care, I know what I like and I know what I don't, I can tell you that they have some wines that I love and they have some that I don't. But that's the same with any of the other vinyards I've been to in Fredericksburg and we've 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 I'm 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 couldn't accomodate a large group, which honestly is more like it. They only have a few people working the counters and it wouldn't be hard for people to walk out with wine they hadn't paid for. They don't keep it locked up behind the counters and it is out for anyone to handle. My guess is that is why they said they couldn't accomadate your group not anything based on a racial basis. Now as for the lady there, I honestly couldn't 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 you're open minded and willing to have a good time give em a shot, you may...

My sister and I just visited this winery and decided on each of us doing a tasting. We are both dry red drinkers. There were 3 of these as well as other white and sweeter wines available for the tasting. It was explained by the older man and woman working behind the counter that we were to choose 4. I chose the dry reds and one Riesling. My sister chose 2 of the reds and doubled up on the 3rd dry red because she does not like white or sweet wines. I would also like to ad that we are both in our 40’s and have been drinking wine for some time now and are very aware of not only how we prefer things, but also that we don’t like to pay for things forced upon us. The man notices that my sister has doubled up on the dry red and tells her that she’ll have to pick something else. She very politely informed him that she does not prefer white or sweet, and he mansplained to her that she needs to branch out and try new things. Again, we are in our 40s, and no stranger to wines in general. He asked her that if her children did not want to eat their vegetables that she would try to make them try new things wouldn’t she? My sister is very polite and not used to being belittled, so was not sure how to respond to him. She told him that her children were almost grown so they as well knew what vegetables they liked to eat by this time. This did not deter him. He went on to ask if she only liked red, but did not like white? She said yes. Then he commented that he would have thought Obama would have changed us on that. He asked, did Obama not teach us to like every color? We as well as the other four customers in the store were completely horrified. At this point, my sister and I wanted to get the wine tasting over and leave. We were each going to purchase a bottle and go to the nearby park to people watch and enjoy time together. But this man made us so uncomfortable with his belittling of women, sexist behavior and racist conversation, that instead of purchasing anything else, we left. We will...