Little Washington Winery and Brewery — Attraction in Virginia

We joined their wine club, everything was nice. It was never outstanding but it was never bad. I have lots of thoughts on this winery but I'm only going to post about the straw that broke the camels back. My husband and I were going out of the country for two weeks (Italy, to taste some truly outstanding wine) and typically we drive out to the winery to pick up our wine club shipment but we knew we wouldn't have a chance to before we left. So we emailed the owner, Carl, and requested that he ship the wine to us instead. We went out of the country in early September and we emailed him in July - plenty of time for this to be taken care of. He responded and said, absolutely. We double checked the address with him, authorized him to charge the additional amount for shipping and that was it. Weeks go by and we don't receive the wine and we don't hear anything from Carl. At this point it's mid-August and we're getting a little nervous because we leave in three weeks and we don't want the wine to be delivered while we're gone. We email Carl again and he responds, apologizing and telling us that he had gotten wrapped up in some things and forgot to ship it. No problem, we still had plenty of time. We told him that was fine and thanks for responding. Two more additional weeks go by and we never hear from him and we never receive the wine. Keep in mind that we've already paid for everything. We email him the week before we leave and tell him to not ship anything (not that it seemed like he was going to anyway) and that if we didn't hear a response we were going to ask for a refund. We never heard a response. We get back from Italy (late September) and email Donna, Carl's wife, and told her that we were charged for wine we never received, we would like a refund and we would like to be removed from the wine club. We received a very short and blunt email back from Carl that said, "We've refunded you for the wine and we will remove you from the wine club." And that was it! No apology, no explanation, nothing. I was floored. I expected some sort of reason or excuse and at the minimum I expected an apology. What I was left with was the feeling that they just never got around to shipping the wine because they didn't feel like it, didn't want to? I'm not sure. And that they weren't at all sorry for it. Which is really too bad and disappointing. My husband and I are very flexible and forgiving people and I wish we had a better experience here but unfortunately the complete lack of responsibility and customer service is enough to keep us away from...

Ya know, it kinda kills me to drop this lone star review. Especially because the first part of our visit was nice. In fact, the whole reason we have continued to drive an hour away to support this business with visits before COVID, wine purchases during COVID, and ultimately came back with guests for another class today was because of the warm ambience and nice owners. Unfortunately, the one star is deserved. The class was fun, but kept getting interrupted by the ruckus in the wine room and people wandering in repeatedly. No big deal, and I was actually happy to see it was busy because we enjoyed the place and love supporting local businesses. Besides that, the lady giving the class handled the strays very gracefully and with good humor. All was well until the class ended... it was abrupt, it was early, and within a few minutes, Carl was at our table standing with a dish tray and clearing out the glasses and food of our guests who had stepped away to the restroom. We felt incredibly embarrassed and like we were nothing more than animals to be herded out so the next round of money could come in. When my daughter came back from the bathroom with her guest and said something about him clearing the table, the only response was, "I'm way ahead of you, young lady." No apology, no graciousness. Just a swift and rude dismissal. We saw it happening with others in the class too, and I have read other reviews where folks have had similar experiences, so maybe this is something they will work on. I hope so, because it would be a shame for this local business with great offerings in a beautiful location to lose patrons because they treat...

A great day out at Little Washington Winery. (Note they are near the Inn at Little Washington, but not affiliated.)

They have a fantastic setup - a beautiful house with a nice deck to enjoy their wines from. We brought our own spread for lunch and sat there while enjoying a tasting, which range from $15-20, depending upon your selections. (I'm not a fan of Virginia wines, so I was glad to see that they offered others from around the world!) You can also buy a glass of whatever they have open. (We did and it was nice, but at $15 it should come in a real, not plastic, glass...)

Then we did the wine and dessert pairing class and it was really nice - they didn't skimp on the desserts, nor the wine pours! (my only comment here is that the talk was very long at the beginning - I'd say a good 15-25 minutes before you were supposed to taste the 1st wine. I recommend they give you a glass of water or something to fill this "dry spell." But the glass was well put together and rather informative and ran for 1.5 hours.

Then we walked down to their original location and sampled a flight of their beers - one IPA, the others all brown ales, which I happen to like. The one made with cacao nibs was particularly tasty! (I didn't care for the IPA, a bit too pine-needle-tasting?) But otherwise a nice place to stop with a decent collection. The owner is working on diversifying his beers and will start making other...