Alright ... so the wine here tastes a bit like Hawaiian Punch mixed with Four Buck Chuck. You aren't here for the wine ... it's the experience. I'm not going to throw shade at the wine because Cape Cod isn't exactly Bordeaux, France. They have like 7 rows of scraggly vines, which are more for atmosphere than anything else. Our server told us that most of the grapes are imported from California. Given the 5 wines I tried, I am quite sure they don't share grapes with Screaming Eagle.
The thing that almost turned this review from 4 star to 3 star is that each wine tasting is supposed to come with a complimentary glass. At the end of our tasting, the waitress brought the bill and walked away. I tracked her down and asked her if we go to the gift shop to get the glass (there are rows of them there) She says because of the pandemic, they ran out of glasses to give out. Same price tasting ... no mention of this even. Apparently the multiple rows of wine glasses in the gift shop for sale are 'special' wine glasses that can't be given away. Not sure how a pandemic makes free glasses disappear but honestly, I didn't need the glass. It's more of a principal type thing.
Onto the good ... the 'winery' itself is very cute. It would fit in on Long Island or maybe even in Santa Barbara. There are several seats ... some in the sun, some under the shade of a canopy. As mentioned, there are a few small rows of grape vines. The tables were reasonably spread out ... most of the crowd was 21 - 25 years old based on looks (aka ... spreaders) so we were a bit cautious but we felt safe and that the winery was taking proper precautions against covid.
The wines are listed on a page and you pick 5 which are brought out in a little sample board. Oddly, 3 sample boards are too big to fit on one of the wine barrel tables, so the waitress placed the 3rd one on an open chair. (hopefully sanitized) Each are labeled so you can be sure which wine you are drinking. The waitress was probably in high school, so she didn't know much about wine ... at all. Or the production, etc. We felt bad because each time we asked her a question, it seemed like we were trying to stump her, though we weren't.
We ordered a cheese plate to go along with it. What came out was surprising ... but a fantastic value! We got a whole package of sliced cheddar cheese (the pre-sliced blocks), a package of salami and a package of Toll House crackers. Doing in the math in my head, I am not sure how they actually make money on these as the $10 they charge seemed like less than it would cost to buy all these on their own. If you have 3-5 people ... I recommend getting the 'cheese plate' to go along with the wine tasting.
As mentioned ... the wines were not to our taste. Somehow, we all managed to buy a bottle anyways. I guess it's kind of like when your kid stops at the bookstore and buys a sweatshirt of a college that he/she just took a tour of but didn't like. We figured we should support the business and buy the wine because we had such a nice day sitting in the sun and tasting wines on Cape Cod.
The property itself is an instagrammer's dream. Plenty of parking. Friendly staff. Fun experience. I'd recommend it to anyone who was on Cape Cod and wanted something to do on a non-beach day. We also enjoyed walking around Brewster a bit. There's not much there ... but they had a cool little vintage shop/record store and some really old school Cape Cod buildings (white churches, 1800's Colonial houses, brick buildings, etc.) It looks like vintage Cape Cod without all the tourist junk that popped up as you move further west.
If you come for the wine, you'll leave disappointed. If you come as a fun day trip, you'll likely have much more fun than you expected. I bet it would be a lot more fun post-pandemic too once things get back to normal with the food offerings. Not a bad spot on the Cape! read more