Fruit Yard Winery — Attraction in Town of Starkey

Very poor service. We entered here on a saturday mid day and was the only vehicle in the parking lot (at arrival and during the whole experience). We were greeted with a worker who was rolling her eyes and sighing. The worker asked if we had a reservation, and we informed her that we unfortunately did not. She informed us that she could not allow our group to do a tasting due to it being more then 5 people (we had a group of 11). We asked if we could split our group up and just do 2 groups of 5 and one person in our group just wouldn’t do a tasting. Caitlyn informed us that she can not do that, she would only be able to take 5 of us max and that she can’t do 2 groups of five. While we were deciding if it was worth it she continued to sigh and roll her eyes at us. We decided that after the poor service that only 4 of us wanted to continue with a tasting. While doing the tasting she seemed highly annoyed and disgusted, as if our business is not worth her time. We were down to our last 2 wines and a lady in our group who was tasting asked if she could switch the order of the last two wines (strawberry and chocolate covered strawberry) due to thinking that she wouldn’t like the chocolate covered strawberry and didn’t want that flavor to linger in her mouth. Caitlyn informed us that she can not switch the order and that there is only one order that the tastings can be served in. At the very end of the tasting a lady in our group asked Caitlyn if she had a lot of reservations after us, Caitlyn then informed us that she had no reservations for the rest of the day. I understand that we did not read the policy prior to walking into the winery, although I feel that the poor attitude, poor customer service and just straight up rude behavior should be something that others who may read the website are aware of. We visited so many other wineries in the area and all other places had no issues with splitting our group up, changing orders of wine, allowing us to try wines not on the flight list, or taking us without reservation due to the wineries not having other reservations or just not being busy. Definitely will not be back to this winery, although will be sharing...

My friends and I were touring wineries in the area over the weekend and we each picked a place to go. This place was my pick because I love sweet and fruity wines, and I have to say I would not recommend going here. We all had water bottles when we walked in and were told we couldn’t have “outside beverages.” Whatever. Rules are rules and we didn’t complain, but were confused as to why. We put our water bottles back in the car. None of the other wineries we went to had a problem with our water bottles.

When we came back in, the cashier checked all our IDs and eyed me specifically up and down because my ID is still a vertical one. God forbid I got it renewed before I turned 21. The cashier also felt the need to point out to one of my friends that his ID would be expiring soon. I’m not sure if she thought she was being funny, but none of us really appreciated her attitude.

Also, another guy in our group is gluten-free, which a lot more wineries need to take into consideration when they give out snacks with the wine tasting. Fruit Yard is no exception. I appreciate when places give out snacks during wine tastings, but with how common dietary restrictions are nowadays, pretzels may not be the best thing to offer.

The lady who poured our wines during the tasting was friendly and knowledgeable. I even ended up liking the blueberry and raspberry wines enough to buy a bottle of each, but unfortunately, my overall experience of Fruit Yard does not make me...

8 of us stopped here today, Saturday 10/25/25. What a mistake. We were not greeted well when we entered. 5 of us paid for tastings and we were told we could only choose from the designated list of dry or sweet wines since we didn’t have a reservation. When we come to the finger lakes to go wine tasting, we drive and stop at places that look interesting to us. I told her we didn’t know we needed a reservation. After questioning more found out that groups over 6 need a reservation. I said we only have 5 tasting. Then I said if only the 5 of us came in without a reservation, what would be different. She said we would be able to choose any 5 wines we wanted. I explained how unfair that was. Since I had already paid my $10 I tasted the wines but made up my mind that Caitlyn would not get another penny of my money. This isn’t our first rodeo up here and we have never been treated like this. I’m sorry that Caitlyn must hate her job and is a very unhappy person. There was a wine I tasted that I would have bought several bottles but we are continuing on and there will be better places with good service that I will...