Balletto Vineyards — Attraction in Sebastopol

I bought a Travelzoo deal for a reserve tasting and cheese pairing to take my partner here for a day trip off the coast where we live. We made a date out of it given this vineyards good reviews and our fondness for wine/cheese pairings. Unfortunately, I think the poor service of 1 person, who was really the only employee who interacted with us, really ruined this experience for us.

First, let me offer some compliments: the location/view, seating on the big open patio, and the fact that our reserve tasting reservation had a table set up on arrival was a nice touch. The Reserve tasting was okay, not a ton of variety but it was good wine. The cheese pairing had some great variety and tasty cheeses but we were given no pairing suggestions or info on the cheeses themselves other than their names.

Now my critiques: upon being seated, we were helped by a very young gentleman who was friendly, but after pouring the first wine disappeared for long periods of time (15+ min). We were one of only 2 tables at the whole place so there was no reason for this.

We had to wait 10+ minutes twice for our next tasting to be poured, and were given really zero information about the wines or the cheese pairings. He was friendly but there was zero effort made, he didnt want to be there and that was clear.

We even decided to give them another shot after the tasting flight to get a glass and even maybe buy a bottle. No one came to even check on us outside for another 20 minutes at which point, having prepaid online, we decided to just leave instead of buying a bottle or glass after the tasting. When we were almost to our car, the other older gentleman working came running out, obviously clearly concerned we were skipping on our bill. We informed him we prepaid and he said okay and turned around-- why was their concern about us leaving without paying the only reason someone came to help us as one of only 2 guests at the whole place???

Hopefully this was just a COVID staffing related issue, but we felt ignored, unwelcome, and were surprised that we were willing to spend another 50-80 dollars and couldnt even get the service to give them that money if we tried.

We ended up saving our afternoon by going to the Hanna Winery down the road and had a fantastic experience...

This review is a week overdue. A group of 10 and myself had our own wine road weekend. This was our last stop on our fun filled sunday wine tasting adventure for the day. We had a 3pm reservation and arrived on time. We we sat at our table beautiful setup on the patio. Our wine host, Ian started pouring us glasses of wine. He didn't explain what he was pouring, no history on the grapes, region, aromas or taste of what he was pouring. We had to keep asking him what wine was he pouring us. Someone in my group purchased wine to take home. He came out and placed the bottle on the table with no bag or anything. She asked him wheres the bag? He said "oh you want a bag?" Her reply was "yes I'm traveling, this wine needs a bag!" Once she recieved her bag for the wine. He disappeared, didnt ask did anyone else want to purchase or pay for tastings. I had to go inside to find him, sitting at a computer doing whatever and tell him we needed to close out. We have been to this winery a few times previous during wine road events and loved it. That's why we put it on our list for our own personal wine road. We were very disappointed. I don't know if it was towards the end of day and he just wanted to poor and get it over with, overwhelmed by our group of 10 or having a bad day. However he was young 24 yrs old, but if you're pouring wine, you should be aware of what you're pouring, explain, etc. Maybe he was the winery owners relative, whoever he is, he should be educated on what is being...

Great wine starts in the vineyard. It should be no surprize, therefore, that Balletto wines are outstanding. John Balletto is a local guy, born and raised in Sebastopol, who, when his dad died while John was in high school, started growing vegetables with his mom. He grew everything from lettuce, to zucchini, to basil. He began growing grapes, not as a boutique grower with money from the dot com industry, but as a farmer. Then, when you take wine grapes grown by a real farmer, in a region ideally suited to the pinot noir varieties he grows, and turn them over to a gifted and talented and perfectionist team of winemakers headed by Anthony Beckman, the result is some of the finest wines in the world. Don't take my word for it. Go to the tasting room and taste for yourself, and look up the number of awards won every year at the Sonoma County Harvest fair competition.

It may be entirely separate from the quality of Balletto wines, but John and Teri Balletto also are deeply involved in our local community and they support many civic organizations and the arts community. For me, that gives Balletto wines an extra richness and depth that transcend fermented...