They need to consider this crazy $12 corking fee if you buy and drink their wine there. Corking fees are typical when you bring in an outside wine to an establishment, not when you buy the establishment's wine and drink it there.
I have been in the wine industry and around winery owners and the wine establishment since I was 12 in the Central Valley. So I am no dummy when it comes to wine. And there are no wine experts. This wine retail establishment (NOT a restaurant nor a winery) initiated a $!2 "corking fee" if you buy a bottle of wine that THEY sell you if you drink it there. NOT one you bring in, but THEIR wine. I have never heard of this and I frequent 3 wine bar establishments in So CA.
They waive the "corking fee" if you join their "wine club" there, which is something like $50 per month. I can understand their price increase in the tastings, but a corking fee at a retail tasting room at an establishment that does NOT make wine nor private label it is bizarre. Especially in the IE, in Yucaipa of all places, LOL. It is a methodology to push you into the wine club. Ughhhh. Not!
My 5 wine knowledgeable friends (who aren't into the junk plebeian wines like most folks who wouldn't know the difference if you served them Barefoot or a Gallo compared to Byron or a Gustavo) regularly buy 10-30 bottles per month each from numerous wineries and establishments all agreed: we can get the same or better wines at High Times, Orange County Wine Mart (excellent hard-to-find choices and specials and fair prices), Total Wine, Wine Lab, The Wine Country, dozens of other establishments that are on the wine band wagon---or at any of 50 wineries in Temecula, Rancho Cucamonga, Paso Robles, Santa Barbara, or even La Bodega, Gerard's, or Von's Pavillion.
I think this is a system that will effectively isolate the folks that actually buy bottles and sit and enjoy them in the establishments. My 5 friends all agreed. Instead, the casual dilettantes will simply just do tastings or single wine glasses (or beer---although beer drinkers now have a plethora of locations in the booming craft beer industry).
Wine clubs are generally a "pain in the rear", in all but the best genuine wineries. You have to monitor your auto-charges constantly and deal with pickups and selections that may not agree with you. and a few other things I won't get in to.
Driving all the way out to Yucaipa to pay $12 ON TOP OF their retail store bottle price effectively is the epitome of indiscretion. I prefer just to go to Citrone or Caprice or Greensleeves if I want to drink wine in a nice place locally. Or go to Pacific Wine Merchants in Upland for a place to drink my wine, smoke my cigar, and have a relaxing time.
This establishment is NOT cigar-friendly like Pacific Wine Merchant (and cigar store) in Upland and they appeared to be averse to smokers and to cigar-wine events. (I want to remind people that the premier wine rater in today's wine world, James Suckling, is also a big time cigar aficionado, as are many wine aficionados.)
Also, we noted that the recent tasting wines were banal and "prosaic", not up to par compared to the last 10 times we had been there and tasted interesting high value wines. And we waited twice, once for about 10 minutes, to get a pour in the sequence. Something has changed.
After the last tasting selection of the new wines, we switched to a bottle of Trinitas Zin that we know was consistently good and that was when we discovered this bizarre $12 corking fee.
I hope they come up with another system that will be more realistic to folks. read more