De Bortoli Wines, Hunter Valley — Restaurant in Lovedale

So I was just there on my hens' weekend last week, but we are not a rowdy group, just a group of 8 ladies in their 30s looking to taste wine and experience the hunter valley. I was dressed in my "hen costume" (short veil and white dress). We were actually there to have a nice experience to end our trip. This tasting was booked by our Airbnb host.

When we arrived we were not greeted, and straight away a lady stated "Oh we don't do hens parties." We couldn't understand as we didn't ask for any special hens party favours, and we had a booking made already. I was carrying a can of sparkling water and was accusingly asked whether it was alcohol or not.

We did not barge in yelling and we most definitely were not drunk. This kind of "greeting" put a sour taste in our mouths as we were actually very looking forward to this winery as our Airbnb host highly recommended it.

The lady serving us did apologise to us later for what she said and gave us an extra serving of dessert wines to make up for it.

The man afterwards said the initial abruptness was due to them being busy, but this was not true. We had the entire back room with barrels to ourselves and only one small group was having a tasting at the front. This was early Sunday afternoon after we had lunch.

This experience was such a shame, marring our otherwise perfectly amazing weekend in the hunter region. The girls even said to me that they would have considered buying more wine had they not been treated as such.

I work in a customer-facing position as well, and there are definitely better ways to have approached this situation. Even if they do not do hen’s parties as they stated, we would have gladly gone away had they told us kindly, rather than made to feel very awkward and small initially.

I think this goes without saying, but none of us will be...

Well first of we were a little disappointed the restaurant was closed , but our bad didn’t check web page well enough . We were given our high visibility vests for the behind the scenes tour. Then introduced to Scott Fitzgerald the cellar door manager, he was bright happy and very welcoming. The information that we got was interesting and informative telling us about there history in the Yarra valley and beyond. Also about the grapes they grow picking and also fermentation of the wine seen all sorts of wine barrels including the size because there are many . Viewed wine in large vasts in the process of production.

We walked to some vines he explained the type and what they made . Then the good part the tasting. Paired with a cheese to complement the wine all done very professionally. We finished the arvo with a bottle in the gardens for an end to a very...

Worst cellar door experience ever. We had joined the wine tasting, no water, no tipping container were provided unless you ask. 6 people we shared 2 mini bottles of water to rinse the glass and rinse our taste bud after each wine. Even worst is that at the end of their tasting menu it said "Join the cellar club for ZERO sign up fee and receive 20% off wine purchases...", therefore we bought $420 worth of wines and wanted to sign up the club membership, however, they DO NOT allow us to sign up and use the 20% off unless we pay $110 and purchase another box of MYSTERY wine (which we do not know what wines are in there and we may not like)

I do not normally do reviews, but this is very disappointing and I strongly think this is not the right way to do business especially when the menu emphasised ZERO sign up fee.

This is beyond basics and will definitely...