Right behind Lone Madrone’s tasting room, just off the 46 West, is the new location for the North County Ken Volk tasting room. Ken is the guy that started Wild Horse in Paso Robles, then moved down to Santa Maria wine country to establish his namesake label. Well, now he’s back! In fact, right back in the same location that he started Wild Horse in! It all comes full circle. Ken makes great wines, a huge variety of different wines, ranging from fruity whites to bold reds and everywhere in between. We guarantee you that you’ll get to try something you’ve never tried before when you walk in to the KV tasting room! We got to talk with Azurae, the tasting room manager…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Aumbiomt4[/youtube]
Note: We stopped at the Santa Maria tasting room in an effort to do a combo post…but didn’t have the best experience there. They were really busy and it was difficult to get up to the counter for a taste…you know how sometimes people just hang out at the bar even though there are 3 deep waiting for a taste behind them? Yeah, that’s what happened. We wanted to throw a thought out there; we’re all out there tasting to have fun and enjoy the wine, the people and the atmosphere. To those pouring: be aware of who’s at the bar and who’s waiting and help all of us because we just want to taste the wine! As Hoot ‘n Annie wine people, we say give them a friendly nudge, a big genuine smile, and bust on up to the bar!!! Cheers!!!
Very cool video we will definitely stop in. Thanks for adding that note about crowding at the bar. We have had that experience at a popular winery like Wilson Creek in Temecula (I use to be a wine club member) we would try to squeeze up to the bar for tasting but it was impossible so we would stand there behind a few people for a long time and no one would be kind enough to let us through or see we wanted to do some tasting and the bartender just shined us on as well. So we would leave and each time we would go back (to give them a second chance) it was alway crowded/same thing again so this time I sent them an email and advised them of it and we eventually cancelled the wine club. So please WINE PEEPS be considerate of others at the bar, we move for other people and we expect the same respect. Cheers!
Hi Bev! Glad you liked the video…as for the note on pouring, we’re really into customer service and think it’s probably the MOST important part of any business! After all, even if you have great wine and a cool tasting room, but bad customer service, people will eventually stop coming in. We’d rather drink mediocre wine at a place that has great customer service! It’s that perfect storm that we talk about: good wine, cool atmosphere, great customer service/people. That’s what we look for!!!