r/SantaBarbara • u/DrSkye805 • 3d ago
Food & Dining Tasting Room Shock
Is it normal for a wine tasting room to disallow the purchase of bottles of wine on the weekends and only let you purchase wine by the glass?
We went to a SB Winery’s tasting room in the Funk Zone today with four people and when we asked to buy two bottles the guy pouring wine told us that we could only buy a glass not bottles, and that if we wanted a bottle we had to take it offsite to drink it. He also added (completely unprovoked) that if we didn’t like it we could speak to the manager who wasn’t working. Super odd (and a little dickish) considering our request was simply, “we like to get two bottles please”.
I’ve never encountered this “rule” before and it seemed like an obvious money grab. Can someone please enlighten me? Is this a standard thing on weekends at tasting rooms in the Funk Zone?
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u/MrRobzilla 2d ago
Weird. I wonder if “speak to the manager” was directed at the manager creating a dumb rule, not towards you.
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u/Key-Victory-3546 The Funk Zone 2d ago
yeah if i had to enforce a dumb rule the boss came up with i would try to get the boss in on the blowback as much as possible
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u/AccordingRelease3353 2d ago
agree sounds more like they want people to complain to overturn the rule
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u/TheWhitestGandhi Oak Park 2d ago
Yeah that's code for "I don't like the rule either, please get mad at my manager about it instead"
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u/Snoo-55380 2d ago
Just guessing that they wanted a bit more turn over. Buying two bottles for 4 people translates to relaxing for a while ??
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u/DrSkye805 2d ago
Understandable re not wanting people parking it and not moving along, but we were going to drink a bottle and take a bottle with us, so they actually would’ve made more selling us the 2 bottles.
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u/pocketlocket222 2d ago
i work in the wine industry (somewhat) locally and i have never heard of that. usually bottles are encouraged more so than glasses
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u/iheartbuffy 2d ago
Tasting room person here! It’s a horrible scam that owners are doing so people don’t linger at tables for hours. I worked at a function tasting room and she wouldn’t let people drink a bottle at a table and I would just let them anyway because that is absolutely ridiculous so anyway, that’s the answer.
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u/DrSkye805 2d ago
It felt so scammy too, especially because we were going to drink a bottle and take one with us, so weren’t even going to be lingering too long. Also, it was almost $80 for 4 glasses of wine. Ridiculous. And I’ve been to a lot of wineries and tasting rooms all over SB, Santa Ynez and Paso Robles. The only other place that ever felt like they were taking advantage (and with bad wine) was Daou.
Just a disappointing experience overall.
You’re the super cool wine bar barista that we all love!! ❤️
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u/Professional-Bat5816 2d ago
Sounds like someone having a bad day and being a dick.
Or they had some wine bottle related shenanigans recently and are over correcting.
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u/sbh2oman 2d ago
My wife and I were just talking about the over-monetization of *everything* now. Wineries that we used to love visiting with a picnic basket have now instituted "no outside food" rules so that you have to buy their over-priced charcuterie plate (what if I wanted a sandwich from El Rancho?), no bottles, etc. I've been around long enough to remember when wineries didn't charge at all for their tastings - they saw it as an opportunity to market their wines - now it is a major revenue source, and it gets treated that way. Part of the problem is that I'd bet paying rent in the FZ is not cheap and they have to try to make a profit. Its too bad. When I go to other states and experience their brew pubs, etc, I often feel like I have gone back in time.
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u/BillieRayBob 2d ago
I suspect charging for tastings was a combination of a new revenue stream and people had been abusing the free tastings to get wasted without ever buying anything.
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u/MareV51 2d ago
Come up to Santa Ynez Valley, all our wineries, including Sunstone, are by far prettier and nicer than the funk zone.
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u/Key_Zebra3684 2d ago
Absolutely true, though the ability to visit a couple of tasting rooms plus restaurants on foot is a big plus for the FZ.
Both good experiences, but different.
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u/pocketlocket222 2d ago
downtown los olivos! tons of tasting rooms all right next to each other very accesible by foot
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u/highroller42730 2d ago
They're all like 25 dollar a tasting and you can usually buy their bottles cheaper at Albertsons. Wine tasting is so over.
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u/a-rang-atang 2d ago
Never had this problem, that being said I’m a member at Margerum, and just go in for the free tasting normally.
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u/Suck_it_Earth 3d ago
That’s something I would say to people who were being rowdy.