Ron Yates Wines — Attraction in Texas

Just a quick note of thanks to Ron Yates for a wonderful tasting experience late Saturday evening. Our party walked into a bustling wine room ahead of our reservation time. We were directed to an open table and we awaited the start of our experience. A unassuming man in shorts and flip-flops walked into the room, and was pointed in our direction by tasting room staff. "Hi, I'm Ron" is how we began... then he said, "I just do what they tell me to do so I'll be your guide, let me get you started". The detective in me immediately Googled Ron Yates images and as he went to fetch our first tasting, I show the image to my party and said "is this 'the guy'?" As Ron returned I asked "are you Ron Yates?" It was and for the next hour and a half Ron shared his story, the vision of the wines being produced, the people working at Yates to create such wonderful product and shared some of the upcoming inventions and partnership activities planned. I'm not a big Tempranillo fan, but found the Yates product to be excellent. In fact we zeroed in on the Friesen vineyard wines on the recommendation of a trusted winemaker competitor; absolutely delicious. Ron pushed us to try additional varietals and we very much enjoyed all we tried. Thank you Ron for sharing your...

First time going to a winery since I was 6 visiting in California, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect; but Blown Away by the experience! Went into the tasting room, got a list of 21 wines to choose 5 from. Lots of Grenache, Sangiovese, and Tempranillo (blends, too) as the Spanish climate is similar to Texas. Water provided, spitting acceptable if you’re driving. The thing that really made this visit shine, though, was our server. She was brilliant at her job! She asked the right questions to figure out what level we were at in relation to wine tasting, offered opinions, asked for feedback, and when hit with a question she didn’t know the answer to, had no problem pulling out a two inch binder with handwritten notes scrawled in the margins of the printed pages. Really fantastic! After the tasting, we asked for, and received, a quick tour of the grounds and winery - there as no fruit on the vine (it’s winter) and you can only get so excited about seeing barrels without any Riesling involved. Would I go back again? Of course! There are another 19 wines to sample the next time I go down to Austin. Bought a few bottles before leaving, and left a nice tip, as one does. [Devil’s advocate; it was January, on a weekday, at 11:30am when we visited - your...

My husband and I are members and we love this winery. However, we brought friends this weekend and had really talked about this winery. The winery was not prepared and frankly could have cared less. They had no crackers and half of the charcuterie supplies in the refrigerator case were missing. Normally you go to the refrigerated case and pick out cheese, sausage, dip, etc. and they will put it on a board for you.

We spoke to the staff and they apologized, but they said they did not have any crackers and had no dip. I asked why the person in charge had not stocked up for the weekend. They did not know

We walked across the way, to the members only facility and spoke to Barry. He was extremely rude, but he could’ve cared less that we were asking for crackers and items to go with the charcuterie. He argued that they did not have crackers and did not have normal charcuterie. I’ve been coming here for a long time and there is always items in the refrigerator and crackers. The problem was is that he did not nor did anyone else really care. They didn’t care that we needed some food to have with our wine so that it would be more about the experience. I am truly disappointed and rethinking whether or not we should keep...