Castel Grisch Winery — Attraction in Town of Reading

Castle Grinch

I mistakenly called this place Castle Grinch before arriving, and now having visted there, I see it was no mistake. It seems as though the Tasting Room is run by Grinches. I made a reservation for a party of 14 for a tasting. Upon arrival, they seemed immediately annoyed with our presence. We went into their side room for our tasting, where we were told to “write your names legibly”. Thinking we were being helpful, we collected the tasting sheets and handed them to the woman, who became angry that we did so. “How am I supposed to know where everyone’s sitting?”. We assumed the “write legibly” meant she’d be calling out people’s names. She then would get annoyed by calling out several names, and when people raised their hands, she’d say “well which one are you?”. Unbeknownst to them, one of our members also overheard them talking negatively about our group. After we left the tasting room, I asked if I could pay for all the tastings on one card before we proceeded outside (so they wouldn’t need to swipe multiple cards), to which she replied, “I don’t know.” I’m not really sure why she didn’t know if I could pay. I eventually was able to, but not before she gave one member of my group issues with purchasing 4 bottles. Once we proceeded outside, the same person approached us saying we left “everything” in the tasting room and that we needed to clean it before another group of 15 came in. A few of us collected the small plates left on the table, but when asked where the trash can was, were once again told, “I don’t know”. I’m not entirely sure what they do know at this place. While sitting outside with the 4 bottles of wine our group purchased, the same server came out and started counting our bottles. We’re like, “can we help you?” because she came out twice to do it and said she needed it for “itemizing”, which shouldn’t that have been done when the bottles were paid for? Wasn’t there records of that on iPad/register? It very much felt like an accusation of stealing. While walking out to go to the next place, she said, “oh so you can clean up after yourselves, good job”. If you didn’t want a large group to come and visit your establishment, don’t take the reservation. We would’ve skipped this stop if we knew we weren’t wanted there. Also, the bathroom smelled like rotten eggs. So yeah,...

NEVER HOLD A FORMAL EVENT HERE EVER

My wife and I had our wedding held here. I cant describe to you the amount of stress that this place caused us.

1- When we went to look at the place, it was great, we loved it for its rustic feel, but then they decided to renovate the entire place, taking away the biggest thing we loved about it.

2- In the middle of planning for the wedding, they switched owners, and we were treated with such disrespect. The owner demanded that we pay our balance upfront two weeks before the wedding (which is against etiquette), or else she would cancel the entire wedding....TWO WEEKS BEFORE and she threatened to cancel.

3- The day of the wedding, everything was disorganized, nothing had been done the way we asked, and some things that we payed for we never ended up getting.

4-We ended up doing pictures outside and it happend to be a really cold day, and after our bridal party was done, the owner REFUSED to let the bridal party inside the wine room (which we rented out for the day) because there was a tour there (there wasnt supposed to be). She actually yelled at one of the bridesmaids to get away from the door...what kind of person does that to a paying customer? (On a positive note, the guy selling the wine gave them free wine as an apology because even he knew that the owner was being nasty.

I need to make mention of the wedding coordinator, everything i stated above was NOT HER FAULT! She did a great job trying to get the wedding together, she was even willing to go out of her way to find another place for the wedding if the owner went through with cancelling. Her name was Lee Liter. Out of everyone who worked there, she cared more about us, then she did about the money. She is the ONLY reason why this review gets 2-stars

Positive- Great view of Seneca Lake, and...

I went here with a group of 14 girls, it was the second winery we went to yesterday & we’re not intoxicated at this point. The only thing this place has going for them is the dinosaurs on the way in. We made reservations & when we walked in we went right to the table that was reserved for us. Immediately we were greeted by the most miserable & rude server I’ve ever come across in my life— who wouldn’t give us her name. She emphasized that we needed to “legibly” write our names on the paper for our flight of wine. We collected the sheets to hand to her & she gave us attitude because she “didn’t know where people were sitting”. One of the girls told her that we could easily point out who was sitting where.. she responded “no” & walked away. As she brought our wine flights in she yelled out our names & became annoyed if we didn’t raise our hand immediately. We made our way outside & were told by the same miserable server that we needed to go back inside to “clean up after ourselves” because another group was coming to use that table.. 60 mins later as we were leaving no one was at the table. Every time one of us went inside to buys bottle of wine & asked if we could pay towards our bill (catching them talking bad about us each time) we were told they wound just “add it to our bill”— that turned into the same server coming out to count the amount of bottles we had at our table. When we asked if there was an issue she told us she “was counting inventory” aka making sure we didn’t steal anything. As we left we, yet again, cleaned off our table & were told “oh you can clean up after yourselves, good job” What bothers me the most is that most of the girls I’m with have been servers or still are.. & we tipped in advanced— & well! Get another job if this is how you’re going to...