Urban Vines Winery & Brewery — Attraction in Westfield

My wife and I came to Urban Vines with high expectations - we had heard many rave reviews from friends and coworkers.

Unfortunately, it was not our experience. First of all, we got there and it’s almost exclusively an outdoor venue. There really isn’t any controlled environment to taste the wines. It was 93 degrees on the day we went. For the prices they charge and the volume of business they do, it seems to me they should invest in a more controlled environment option, especially for something as temperature sensitive as wine.

This isn’t really their fault, but this is a heavily used party environment. We counted no less than 3 bridal parties in the hour plus that we were there. Wine slushies were everywhere. And they had an adjacent children’s park - I’ve never seen so many kids at a wine bar. Odd and off putting to say the least.

We walked outside to get a table and found it was just too hot to even think about trying to enjoy wine outdoors in the shade. What little seating there was inside (20 chairs, maybe…?) was at least cool enough to tolerate if not enjoy a wine flight.

We ordered 2 wine flights and a wine board. The lady who rang us up got our order wrong at least 3 different times - fortunately there’s a screen where I can check.

The wine was ready relatively soon but they’d didn’t bother to tell us that because the wine board wasn’t ready. When we finally asked if those were our wine flights just sitting there getting warm, they said yep! Those are yours! … Thanks.

That took about 10 minutes to get our wine flights. TWENTY MINUTES LATER, my wife finally asks where our wine board is. “They’re still making it”. Our wine had changed temperature to the point where it no longer tasted like it was supposed to.

It took THIRTY FIVE MINUTES for us to get a wine board with them being fully staffed. We told them that and they basically said “Sorry we’ll get it out as soon as we can”. If you care about someone being a repeat customer, the first thing you do is get the wine board delivered. The second thing you do is comp the wine board and if you really want to make an impression, you comp the entire ticket.

As it is we had off temperature wine flight glasses and a wine board delivered after half an hour.

The actual product itself was not bad.

My wine flight was Albariño, Merlot Reserve, Pinot Noir and Sangiovese. My wife had Pinot Noir, Pinot Berry and two others. The Merlot Reserve was by far the stand out of the bunch - it had an extremely earthy quality to it. If we ever do decide to go back that’s a win I want a full glass of.

The wine board was solid but unspectacular. I’ve attached a picture. There’s nothing here that should have taken 15 much less 35 minutes.

All in all, it would take something pretty major to get me to come back to this business. They had a chance to make a new customer and they whiffed in a...

My husband and I stopped in on the recommendation of a friend who had recently visited. The location is great! We would love to see a winery in this area take off. We are big supporters of local businesses. As Indiana wine enthusiasts we were happy to see wines made from grapes that can be easily grown in Indiana such as; traminette, chambourcin, and catawba. Our experience during our tasting left us a little disappointed. We selected the wines we wished to sample. Being lovers of dry reds, we tried all of those. They were not as dry, dark, and full-bodied as we hoped but the malbec was decent. The traminette was the best I've tasted. The catawba was good as well. The prices were a couple dollars too high. The server who began our tasting just poured our samples and walked away. There was no explanation or description of the wines other than what we dragged out of her. After several minutes went by and we didn't see that server, she came back to the bar with her belongings and clocked out! There was no "hand-off" to another server to take over for her. It was clear we were not the priority at the moment. This event caused us to decide we would not get food, and a glass of wine for the patio nor did we buy any bottles which we were considering. The young lady who eventually took over our tasting was very friendly and help make up for the previous experience. All in all, we will likely try again, perhaps on a night with some live music. Time, working out the kinks of a new business, and some bolder drier reds will likely make this place a huge success! The potential is...

Horrible customer relations.

BE WARNED, have your physical ID or expect not to be served even if it’s self evident that you’ve been around much longer than the person ringing up the sale.

My wife and I were planning to spend a lovely Fall day at Urban Winery but it was anything but an enjoyable experience after I ordered a bottle of wine and food.

The server gave me a single glass with the bottle. I told her I needed a second glass. She informed me that my wife would have to come back to get that glass! My wife had already gone to get a table while I ordered.

My wife left her purse at home because she had no reason to bring it with us; therefore, she did not have a driver’s license and they refused to give her a glass without an ID. She’s almost 60 years old, it’s obvious she is of age to consume alcohol.

The staff claim it’s the “law” to show ID. That statement is directional correct but not entirely accurate. The law states that ID is only required if the person being served appears to be younger than 40.

I showed a photo image of her license that was on my phone yet they still wouldn’t serve her. So, I asked for a refund. The food was refunded (later I noticed the 20% tip was NOT refunded). I should have demanded that the whole order be refunded since we did not get to drink any of the wine while there.

Apparently this place was busted by Excise for serving under aged people. Consequently, they use a draconian policy enforcement. The manager and server seemed delighted to...