Aerris M.
Yelp
3.5/5 Came to visit as part of my birthday celebration on Saturday March 2nd. This is located right off the Sonoma downtown square which is nice because there are so many shops and boutiques to explore. My group selected the food and wine pairing tasting option, and since I reserved a table and prepaid for the reservation, upon arrival, our table was already partially set up which allowed us to be immediately seated, loved that. Séamas (James in Irish) was our taste guide - a really nice fella who was fully engaged and not at all intimidated by me and my girlfriends' jokes and giggles -- overall, the ambience in the room seemed more serious -- no music and very soft talking, kind of felt like we were in a library with booze, and at first, it felt odd to speak at all, I found myself whispering. Food pairings were wonderful - the winery works with a local caterer so the food items change periodically. We left with a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, and malbec. Sounds good right? The reason why this isn't rated higher is because the owner was there and spoke to EVERYONE in the room except our table. There were 3 of us ladies, then I counted literally 4 other couples -- the taste room is small so it's not like we were tucked away, and we were there for at least an hour and a half. Since there are so many wineries in this area, part of how I dwindled down the long list of options was by choosing to have my first wine tasting experience at a black owned business (the list really does dwindle down), so to know that Lloyd Davis was in the room but didn't make it a point to say hello was extremely disheartening. We didn't expect anything extra than what we were seeing others experience, which was a conversation or greeting by the owner. Even Seamus mentioned that he'd go get Lloyd to say hello to us (we didn't ask), so clearly, this is something Lloyd usually does. Wine and pairings are really good, ambience is a bit stiff if you tend to be a group who likes laughter and light heartedness, taste guide Seamus was AMAZING, owner ignored us.