My wife and I are first time visitors to the Willamette Valley with a strong interest in wines and in personalized tasting experiences. We have tasted wines all over the world and have especially enjoyed experiences where we are able to share some time with the winemakers themselves or the owner/family members of the winery. I was attracted to the following program and its “promised” experience:
Eola-Amity VIP Wine Experience
THE ULTIMATE LUXURY WINE EXPERIENCE
THIS EXPERIENCE IS YOUR PASSPORT TO THE BEST WE OFFER—PRIVATE INTIMATE TASTINGS, MEET AND GREETS WITH THE WINEMAKERS, A DECADENT LUNCHEON, AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES TOURS.
The program consists of selecting three of six participating wineries to visit in one day to make up the “experience”. We selected Walter Scott, Evening Land Seven Springs Vineyard and Lingua Franca. We experienced our EXPERIENCE today. Each of the individual tastings was a good experience and the tasting guides were well qualified and enjoyable. But the individual and collective experiences fell far short of the expectations set by the program description. We realize it is the harvest season, but still we were struck by the almost complete absence of winemakers during our day. We did see Ken and Erica momentarily passing by our tasting at Walter Scott (was that the winemaker meet and greet?) . This tasting was not private, but we joined a group of four in a tour group (tough shit, schmuck?!). Evening Land was a nice private tasting and experience, but where was the winemaker? And how about the “decadent luncheon”? PLEASE, a couple of sandwiches from Red Hills Market and a few pieces of cheese was a nice lunch but well short of “decadent”. At Lingua Franca, we actually did meet the winemaker but only because he dropped by our tasting tent to retrieve some keys (I guess we were lucky!). My wife forced him to reluctantly take a picture with me but I have already deleted it! (a schmuck still has pride sometimes!) We also got to taste an extra wine at Lingua Franca, but only because the tasting guide of another tasting taking place with non-schmucks (sorry, non-VIPs) decided to open a special extra bottle and had to come to our tent for the Coravin!
There is no way to provide direct feedback for this “experience”. On the website you can read about the program and book your “experience”. The co-ordinating winery which made the arrangements for us a few months ago was Bethel Heights, but they are no longer participating in this program. So who is responsible? Your “VIP” experience may be different from ours. Maybe coming during harvest was bad timing on our part and explains some of the programs shortcomings vis-a-vis promises and expectations, but we cannot and do not recommend this experience. It does not deliver any more than you could arrange for yourself and comes at a price premium. Disappointing!!! Dommage!!!
Cheers!
Jim, sorry for the very disappointing experience. Frankly, would never recommend anyone take such a tour in the WV. It is not that hard to get winemaker access/tastings at many top places without having to resort to a package Tour.
No doubt visiting from mid-September to late October is less than ideal due to harvest, but I’m skeptical your “experience” would have been much different at another time of year.
Hopefully, you can look past today and still enjoy the rest of your trip. And plan to come back in the future outside of harvest season.
Sorry to hear Jim.
Erica and Ken gave us a great tasting when we were there but it wasn’t during harvest. Erica is hoot and Ken was quite entertaining himself. Erica shared some embarassing stories and Ken pulled a few extra barrel samples for us to taste. Besides the hour long geography lesson on the different climates and soils in the Willamette Valley and how they effect the wines… Its was a memorable tasting.
Marcus and Vincent were equally as accomodating. Sorry to hear about the over hyped trip.
Would love to hear more about the wines…
Sean
Sounds like you should be angry at the company you bought from for over promising and under delivering
If you visit during harvest, don’t expect winemaker time. They’re busy, they’re dirty, and they’re tired. It’s best to leave them alone.
I thought this was a joke. An ultimate luxury VIP package? Seems like a passport to a bad time, like ‘gourmet’ fish sticks. I suppose sometimes you can take the short cut of just forking over money and being given the full experience but I can’t imagine a situation where it would have the best outcome. Email people, call, develop relationships and set up tastings on your visit that way. Winemakers aren’t attractions on a cruise line, they work.
Jim, I have two passes to the pool on the roof that I’ll sell you for $15 a pop.
I remember stumbling across this website (or whatever it is) somehow early this summer and thinking, “uh oh, that’s going to backfire.” The promise is too insanely high. This isn’t Napa where grandiosity lurks around every corner and winery tours are actual tours of amazing operations. Customer service at that sort of level is not impossible here but it is tremendously challenging and to do it repeatedly for each time people sign up for this, yeah, not really doable. We have 3.5 people working on sales and customer service and another that floats between winery and sales and, as people can testify here, I or my cellarmastwr try to drop in on tastings when we can and annoy the sales staff by opening something they aren’t showing that day, etc. That is a lot more than most Oregon wineries commit to, especially at our size and especially since we don’t really have a tasting room and a winery tour would pretty much be “here’s the winery!” Even with what we are doing it would be both impossible and impractical to meet the standards that are alleged to be set up. Sorry you had an experience that did not meet the expectations that were laid out. You went to good, honest, labor-intensive wineries at a time of year that fulfilling what was put forth just is not realistic.
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Jim, I think we had this conversation about EXPECTATIONS on another thread. I FU’d again and went high, when I know I should stay low! Thanks for the thoughtful comment. -Jim
Jim,
I sincerely apologize for this experience, and appreciate your feedback as you have made some very important points that the group needs to consider moving forward. I have forwarded this to the wineries involved in the experience.
As for your experience at Walter Scott, I am very sad that you were disappointed in the tasting experience. Your appointment was accidentally double booked yesterday, that is 100% on me and I apologize for this mix up.
Ken and I host all of the appointments during the year unless we are traveling or in the midst of harvest when things are tricky. We had every intention of hosting the group, but harvest logistics got a little crazy and Jess had to step in. The stars aligned with the booking error and you had a very different experience then we had intended and you had anticipated.
Again, I apologize for your experience We are happy to refund the portion of the day that would have come from Walter Scott, Andy will be in touch to get your contact information.
Erica Landon
Walter Scott Wines
Erica,
Thank you very much for this note. We will do a little better job in planning our visit the next time we are out here . . . I am pretty sure that there will be a next time. Wishing you “bonnes vendanges” . -Jim
I think we did the same thing, or very similar in April. It was cast a bit differently as there was no promise of winemaker access, etc., but rather the convenience of booking the day and having lunch provided by the second of the three vineyards. We went to Lingua Franca, Bethel Heights and Cristom, in that order, and had a wonderful time at each…and a wonderful meal at BH. Ben Casteel did come in and spend almost an hour with us but it wasn’t scheduled, just an awesome bonus. Sounds like things have changed.