Goose Ridge Estate Vineyard and Winery — Attraction in Washington

Long review so long story short - horrible experience with things both in and out of their control, but the staff made it worse. And do not sit outside - they have flies!

I normally really like Goose and have been there several times. However I went last Thursday and had the worst experience I've ever had at a winery (which is a lot of wineries). In short - do not sit outside! Not because of the weather or the smoke, but because of the flies! They have a fly infestation that they did not warn us about and it was absolutely awful. We ordered food and could barely eat it because the flies were swarming us, our wine, and the food, despite our attempts to cover it with napkins.

I understand that the fly situation is out of their control (to some degree), so that didn't upset us as much as the staff telling us they didn't have room for us inside but then they grabbed an outdoor table and carried it inside for another party to sit at inside. Once a table did open up inside, the tasting room attendant moved us inside (which was a plus) but then he forgot about us. I had to walk up to the bar and ask for our last tasting and he admitted that he had forgotten about us. Not great but it happens - we're all human.

But then he became incredibly rude! When he began the checkout process, he did a very poor job explaining their bottle purchase/waived tasting fee policy (you have to spend $36+ to waive one $25 tasting fee, which IMO is overpriced). I used the restroom and returned to the table at the tail end of his explanation, which had my mother and MIL so confused to that they had their hands covering their faces and said yes to purchasing bottles more out of desperation and confusion, rather than actual desire. He told them that they had to buy 2 bottles of white, or one bottle of red to waive the tasting fee, or something along those lines.

The tasting room attendant then turned to me and asked if I wanted any bottles and, because I had missed the explantation, asked him what the policy was. He literally closed his eyes, took a huge inhale and exhaled, and became red in the face as he began to explain it to me. To make matters worse, my SIL is in the industry so she asked for the industry pricing and that made him even more visibly upset. We were all appalled at how upset he became. It was beyond rude after we had a horrible experience outside.

We spent a lot of money on both food and wine, and it was so rude to be treated like that. And not that we expect anything to be comped, but it would have been nice to have some of the food comped because we could hardly eat it due to the flies. All of us were so upset when we left - which is NOT how you want to end your wine...

My review specifically references the Spirits/Spirits flight at the Richland Winery. My interest was in the nature of spirits distilled from grapes/wine (I don't know the details of how they did it since we had no discussion with the staff).

GR charged us $15 for a "flight" (if we can all it that...😂) of 3 spirits plus a "cocktail" (more like a mocktail...😖). The biggest issue were the size of the pours.... There was not more than perhaps a quarter to at most a third of an ounce in our glasses. This is INSANE! I have been sipping countless spirits for years - and was shocked that we would not have been provided decent pours for $15 - a half or 2/3s of an oz costs absolutely nothing to GR - but they gave us barely enough except for a couple of small sips.

Second, and nearly as significant, the spirits suck - they are just not quality material. I give some credit to the vodka - not bad - and interesting. I did not bother finishing my teeny pour of gin (yuck!) - and the brandy - started well but late mid-palate into the finish became bitter... Simply lousy brandy - don't waste your effort.

The so called cocktail - Silly - sweet lemonade with no noticeable alcohol - what a joke - irrelevant.

So there you have it - don't waste your time or money on GR's spirits or spirit flight... Super disappointed in the corporate treatment of this part of the business - and colors my perspective of GR.

All that being said - the grounds of the Richland winery are lovely - great lawn, lawn seating, nice winery inside albeit a bit dark.

There you have it - hope the wine flights and wine are WAY better....otherwise GR is simply...

We are cider club members and have had wonderful experiences at the Walla Walla and Woodinville tasting rooms, so we drove up to the estate from Portland. Wow! What a disappointment! We had a reservation and were the only people in the tasting room when we were seated. There were SEVEN staff members working and we had the worst service we’ve ever had. Especially as a member. We asked for a single cider tasting, they brought two, then didn’t check back in with us at all. They completely ignored us. They had plenty of time to stand around and gab with each other, but not to wait on customers. We had to flag someone down to ask for a menu for the wine flight options (the couple sitting across from us asked for a menu and were refused). Then, after getting the menu no one came back to ask if we wanted to taste anything. We finally got someone to bring a few wines over, but again, no one checked back to see if we had questions or wanted to purchase or revisit or anything. The vineyard and tasting room were pretty but the experience was completely ruined by the lack of service. We will be cancelling our...