Hazlitt Red Cat Cellars — Attraction in Town of Naples

This was unfortunately a low point on our trip and a reminder to me to stop picking places based on the name (which I'm probably going to keep doing, if we're being honest). My cousin chums and I kicked off our mini winery tour here this past Labor Day around midday/early afternoon-ish. There was a small batch of wineries in the Naples area that were conveniently located within a short drive of our Airbnb, and this one logically made the most sense to kick off the adventures.

The first issue is the location/atmosphere. The best wineries for me are comfortable and have a nice, pleasant view to look at while you sip your wine. This just doesn't have that all - the winery is located directly behind what looks to be an old factory building, so your view is of that building or at best, the picnic tables to the side of the winery which are sort of in an enclosed outside area that also doesn't offer any real views. The other problem with this situation is that it's a bit DIY - when we ordered our wine flights, we were instructed to bring them outside to wherever we wanted to sit. That's fine, but to even get to the aforementioned picnic tables, we needed to navigate down one or two flights of stairs and another seating area - you're just begging for an accident to happen here. We probably would have opted for the picnic tables if it were an easier trek to get to them. Instead we went with a narrow high-top situation in the area right outside the building on an enclosed porch which did not have a lot of room for our three wine flights.

We each got a $10 wine flight. It was a little annoying to get the little booklet/menu of options indicating we could choose any six, only to be informed verbally and in writing within the actual shop that it was now four. That kind of discrepancy shouldn't be reflected in your paperwork that you're handing out to customers - it looks unprofessional and feels like a holiday cash grab. And a very easy fix; that's a quick trip/order to your local printer at some point.

Given that you're drinking booze by definition, what the winery offers for snacks/food is one of its more important qualities. And again, they fell short. At least they DID provide free popcorn, but it was stale and almost inedible. The water situation was noticeably not good either, which is an odd thing to say about water. But the container it was in had a noticeable smell of dirty dishwater so it didn't seem like they were cleaning their cups/bottles well.

The big problem overall? The wine isn't good, and you kind of know it going in when they're literally selling the wine by the pouch in addition to bottles. It's difficult to take a winery seriously when they're packaging their product in a container that's understandably associated with cheap, mediocre (if that) wine. I ordered the 2023 Gewurz, a Bubbly Reisling, the Schooner White and the Red Cat, which was arguably promoted more heavily than any of the other wines (not surprisingly given the name). The Red Cat probably IS the best of the wines I sampled but like a lot of the varieties, was super sweet and didn't have a lot to offer, palate-wise. I actually tend to like the semi sweet more than the drier wines because for me it's typically a smoother drink and easier to distinguish the notes, but there just really isn't anything here - I hate to say it, but it tasted like fruit juice, which I can just grab from the supermarket if so inclined.

The only reason this isn't a one-star review is because the young women inside were very nice. I don't think any of the issues we encountered were because of them; they warmly greeted us as soon as we came in, and were helpful in directing us to the tasting area. They didn't have a lot to work with, and did what they could - that's a tribute to the winery's hiring practices at least.

Avoid this one. If you need to drink wine out of a pouch, your local liquor store has them in the...

Visited on 8/21/23 right at opening and the young man who hosted us was very cordial and knowledgeable! The pours were generous and the 10 of us enjoyed the wines, ciders, and seltzers! And the free popcorn! Purchased 3 bottles of wine, 2 packs of seltzers, and 6 pack of cider. Very reasonable! He was an excellent host! Would have been five stars except for a young female employee who was attending to merchandise and restocking shelves was making rude comments about my daughter’s questions under her breath that we could hear! I chose to let it go and not to spoil our 30th wedding anniversary wine trip…Sorry my daughter is not a wine expert- just asking general questions about sweetness etc. Maybe next time, this employee should keep her comments in her head so the...

We visited Hazlitt’s on Jan 4 after searching forever for a winery that was open on a Monday during the middle of winter. They were the only one we could find open - Thank goodness for them!! Laura helped us with our tasting - she couldn’t have been nicer and gave us sizable tastings portions. Unlike other tastings I’ve done at Finger Lakes wineries, we LOVED every thing we tried at Hazlitt’s. I’m not a cider person but I highly recommend trying their cider. So good! Right now you need to at least order some chips/popcorn due to covid mandates which wasn’t a problem at all. Thank you!! We...