Sharpe Hill Vineyard — Attraction in Pomfret

My husband and I visited Sharpe Hill last weekend, and had one of the strangest and most off-putting experiences we've had as adults. After our experience I was eager to see if anyone else had encountered something similar, and after reading all of the reviews I'm sad to see that we are not alone. I was initially introduced to Ballet of Angels by my parents, who were enthusiastic CT wine trail participants several years ago. The wine became a staple in our house and was part of countless holiday celebrations. I introduced it to my friend group and created a whole new group of Ballet of Angels fans. Since that time, my parent's health has declined and their memories of their time on the wine trail come up a lot. I got the idea to drive out to Sharpe Hill from the Boston area, and buy my parents a couple of cases for them to have on hand in their new living facility. I knew they would be thrilled since there's not much about assisted living to be thrilled about. When we pulled up on Saturday at 11:00, I was surprised to see the parking lot empty and the place looked closed up. I called the winery number and was told they were indeed open, and I was relieved. Once we got inside we quickly realized we were not in a normal place. The younger owner, who we learned was the daughter, started things out normally enough, but we were suddenly interrupted by the mother who acted as if her daughter wasn't even there and tried to set us up for a tasting. We then stood there trying to figure out what to do while mother and daughter argued openly in front of us. It was instantly awkward, and all my hopes of talking about the wine went out the window. We just wanted to escape with the wine we had planned to purchase. We endured 15 or 20 minutes of the strangest behavior we've ever seen two adults engage in. It felt like we walked onto the set of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - like we were witnesses to a majorly dysfunctional family in the middle of a crisis. It was WILD. In our case, the mother seemed to take a liking to my husband, so she wasn't rude to us like others have written. She was kind of fawning over him and warning us to be careful of bees and deer on the road, and also overly explaining the situation with the lights in the bathroom. But like, over and over. Other topics included horrible distributors who lie, people who want to buy the vineyard for billions, reasons why the restaurant wasn't open, criticisms of various parties related to all of these topics, including past customers who violated rules. Thank god she didn't know I had a water bottle in my purse! Behind all of this was the sound of bird cannons - we had thought it was gunshot, but apparently it was to keep the birds off the grapes. We finally managed to convey that we simply wanted to buy cases of wine, and seemed to be moving forward with that, when I innocently asked if I could purchase a wine glass as a souvenir for my mother. That caused another sharp argument between mother and daughter. Apparently they are NOT FOR SALE but then somehow I ended up with one in a gift bag and we didn't even pay for it. I honestly couldn't even keep track of how that happened because they kept talking/yelling over each other. We did manage to buy the wine we had driven almost two hours to get, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about this insane experience. It makes me wonder if the mother is ill. She did repeat herself a lot in those 20 minutes we were there. But most of all it's sad. It's such a stunning setting and they really have a great fleet of wines. I do have the sense that they will indeed put themselves out of business if the mother continues to trample on guests, though people seem to have been saying that for a number of years now. I can't recommend visiting the vineyard to anyone, but the wine...

We have made the hour-long drive at least once a year for quite a few years to enjoy a visit when the fall foliage comes around, and have really enjoyed it in the past. After today, we will not be returning.

I want to preface this by saying that I have worked in customer-facing positions my entire working life. It is not like me at all to write negative reviews centered around an experience with an employee, even when I have had an unpleasant experience with them. I know very well that dealing with customers can be difficult at times, and I try to give unpleasant employees grace by reminding myself that we all have our “moments” or bad days.

It is clear, both through my own repeated experiences and one brief glance at the reviews here, that the older woman (seemingly the owner?) is not merely having a moment.

The first notable bad experience here was four years ago, in October 2020. My sister and I both have autoimmune diseases, and felt more comfortable wearing masks for the brief moment we were inside, given the tight proximity with others inside the building and the state of the pandemic at that time. I know that masks have become a divisive subject over the years, but as a reminder this was only six months into the pandemic in the US, and masks were completely normal to see and use in public. We were made very uncomfortable right away as the older woman berated us and interrogated us about why we were wearing masks. She would not drop the subject and I felt extremely embarrassed by this. It was also totally unprofessional- anything we made the personal choice to do for the sake of our health was a. None of her business and b. Had nothing to do with us attempting to spend money on a wine tasting. Obviously, that bizarre exchange left a bad taste in my mouth but my family and I had a nice time outside and I brushed it off. I didn’t even think to make a review at that time because I was hopeful that it was a one-off bad experience.

Today, I walked in with two other family members. I had a plastic water bottle sticking out of the front pocket of my jacket, which I totally forgot about as I had been walking around with it throughout the day and it slipped my mind. The older woman was at the front counter and the VERY FIRST words she spoke to us were “NO WATER BOTTLES. NO FOOD, NO WATER, NOTHING.” I am completely happy to follow the rules of an establishment, but it is beyond my comprehension that you wouldn’t even offer a greeting first when your paying customers walk in, nevermind that you would immediately begin yelling at them. I put the bottle in the car and we proceeded outside to have a glass of wine in the courtyard, determined to have a nice, peaceful afternoon regardless.

We ordered a cheese plate (which ended up being a plate of unwashed grapes, a bit of cheese, a handful of assorted nuts and exactly five ritz crackers for $22) and when she brought it to our table, she referenced the sound of gunshots in the distance (which we had been trying to ignore) saying, “They’re killing a deer. Yeah. Isn’t that lovely?” Which put quite a damper on the zen of the outdoors.

It really is a shame - it used to be a beautiful place to sit and enjoy the scenery, but the quality has gone downhill (cheese box was significantly higher quality for a lower price last time we came) and her attitude is so toxic that it’s not worth making the drive anymore. I do want to say that the younger woman (I’m assuming her daughter) was kind to us, and it’s a shame that the older woman’s attitude is going to take her down too as she turns everyone away from this business.

There are plenty of lovely vineyards around with wonderful customer service, and there’s no reason to waste our time or money...

My family and I drove an hour to do a wine tasting for Fathers day. This is one of my families favorite wine, and my parents had visited Sharpe Hill Vineyards a year ago and had a wonderful experience. The 5 of us showed up at 1:30 and were greeted with terrible hospitality as the mother yelled at us to bring out water bottles back to the car, as outside food or drink were not allowed. A completely understandable request but did not need the attitude included with it. We told her it was fine and asked if we they could bring water to our table to which she said "no." We finally got that cleared up by the daughter who said she would get a pitcher of water for us. We should have just walked out then... things only progressively got worse. Everything we tried to do we got yelled at. We came for a tasting but the tasting room was full so they asked us to sit in the front hallway to do it, which would have been very awkward, plus it was gorgeous out so we asked to sit outside. The daughter said that was fine and just to pick a table close to the door so she could do a tasting for us. When the mother caught word of this she yelled at us that that was not allowed which then proceeded into an argument between the daughter and her. My family was very uncomfortable and confronted the mother about her behavior and told her that she was making us uncomfortable, we then got a lecture on that.... Once we were seated we tried to enjoy ourselves, but the mother kept coming over to all the tables and lecturing us on different policies, and the times they closed. We would ask her to leave us alone, but she never would. 10 minutes before they closed the mom then yelled out to the entire patio that she is cleaning up all the glasses because they are closing... my family still have 3 wines left to taste, and other families were still trying to enjoy the wine they purchased. We ended up chugging the rest of the wine, and didn't even wait to use the bathroom in fear we would get yelled at again. As we left the mother followed us out into the parking lot.

It was only the mother and daughter working. We were told the father died a year ago and the mother was having a hard time. My sincerest condolences, however, customer service is extremely important. If your mother is not fit to work, they please keep her off the floor. Our assumption is that they cannot keep anyone else hired. If she was my boss, I would walk out on my first day.

Best of luck to you as a winery. If this keeps up it wont be there much longer. Needless to say, we wont be back...