Daniel M

Review of Doukenie Winery

Downright rude "service" and snobbery! I almost ca...

Downright rude "service" and snobbery! I almost can't believe how obnoxious their "wine educators" (yes, multiple) were to us and other patrons! Don't bother coming here unless you're a member of their wine club, or they'll treat you like you're an annoyance. Really cliquish and childish attitudes abound here.

As soon as we walked in, we're told by a young guy bussing glasses to head to the small bar if we'd like to order a glass of wine. We do so, and see that the woman staffing that bar was busy helping some other people sign up for the wine club. That's perfectly fine, we're willing to wait patiently to order and do so. Another man is waiting with a bottle of wine in his hands as well. After waiting for almost 10 minutes, the "wine educator" finishes her ostensibly polite interaction with the new wine club members and turns her attention to the gentleman waiting next to us with his bottle of wine. He very politely and demurely begins telling her that he has just purchased this bottle of wine, and that he was wondering if it was possible to have her exchange it with a refrigerated one. Before he can even finish, the woman begins nearly yelling at him in front of everyone that "DO YOU SEE HOW BUSY I AM RIGHT NOW? THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOU TO ASK SOMEONE TO EXCHANGE YOUR BOTTLE OF ONE, GO DO IT OVER THERE!!!", as she gestures toward the larger bar. The poor guy sheepishly nodded his head and left. Not how I would have handled on either end, but OK, whatever, it's my turn and I've been patiently waiting at this bar I was specifically told to wait at.

I ask to order two glasses of wine and the woman begins complaining loudly, but not quite yelling like she just did with the other genteleman that I need to go over to the other bar and how she is, for whatever reason, not able to get me a glass of wine right now. I politely, but firmly tell her (in response to rudeness) that we were told by another employee specifically to come to her section of the bar if we wanted to order by the glass. She begins droning on in a rude but more subdued tone and I turn around to go order from the larger bar. At this point, she has noticed that I wasn't thrilled with her disrespect, and as I'm waiting for a bartender to serve me at the other bar, she tries to change her tone and tells me to come over to a particular bartender at the other end of the bar and begins talking about how "she'll serve you right away, don't worry I'll make sure you're taken care of". I make a comment to the effect of "It's not the waiting that is an issue". I don't mind waiting to be served at a busy bar, but unprovoked rudeness towards patrons is simply unacceptable.

The first bartender finally gets the other bartender to come serve me where we're now standing at the larger bar. We order two glasses of Cab Sauv and she's mentions that she needs to go get some from the back. After a short wait, she comes back and says, I kid you not: "Well, I checked in the back, and we only have a little bit of Cab Sauv left. I mean, it WOULD be enough for you two, but when we're running low on a bottle of wine, we like to save it for our wine club members, so Pinot Grigio it is!" as she nearly runs off to grab a bottle of Pinot that we never asked for before I can say "no". I grab her attention and say "Excuse me, no, we don't want the Pinot Grigio", still stunned at her snobbish attitude and in-your-face justification for not serving us (I understand if that's your policy, but don't EVER come and tell a patron that you have some wine that they requested and would normally serve it to them, but that they'd rather keep it for their members, so no actually, you can't have any, in a very patronizing tone, to boot) she now, in an annoyed tone says, "Well, what do you want, then?" At this point, I can pretty much hear her tapping her foot on the floor and sighing in exasperation that I'm not allowing her to treat us as rudely as she wants, so I tell her "Nothing. We're leaving."