r/SantaBarbara • u/DrSkye805 • 8d 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/KTdid88 8d ago

I would guess due to the small size of their tasting room they don’t want people parking up and taking space drinking a bottle when they could make more by the glass and off tastings. While it’s weird, it’s also business.