Hutton Vineyards and Winery

Wine: Winery: Ambiance: Dec 23, 2011

Favorite Wine: None - we didn't purchase any - read review

Each year we make it a point to try and visit 15 - 20 North Carolina vineyards. The rapid growth of various wineries throughout NC is really something to marvel at. We hope to eventually be able to say we've visited every location, but we know that will take some time. With that in mind I had discovered the Hutton vineyards website after looking for more locations to visit. Since we never had visited the Hutton location before, we made it a point to visit during our trip there in October 2011. We even had to email the owners to get precise directions to input into our GPS unit because the address they listed on their website could not be found by our Magellan GPS unit.. We built up our anticipation big time about visiting this place. After all, when you read the story at how Hutton Vineyards came to be, you're just dying to visit. The coat of arms representing Hutton Vineyards also brings up all kinds of imaginative speculation as to what you're going to encounter. But this is where the anticipation (and assumptions) grind to a screeching halt. When we first arrived, we had to drive through some red mud (it had rained earlier) and made a few turns here and there. When we arrived at the wine tasting area, we were aghast at what we found. Hutton uses what looks like an old garage (with a basement) as their tasting area. It looks old and very utilitarian - and nothing about it reminds you about wine. OK, so we enter this building, go down some stairs and like I said - a garage with a basement. Nothing was decorated - very bland - the lighting was bad (I could go on and on). Everyone in our party was absolutely disappointed - it was very anti-climactic. There were a few other utilitarian type of buildings there, along with a double wide mobile home. But what really put the icing on this "sour-cake" was that rather than having someone there who was very knowledgeable about the wines, a Hispanic woman arrived (very friendly though) - who did not speak very good English - to hold the wine tasting. I tried asking her to tell us about the wines, and other than "people like this, or people like that one," she was no help whatsoever. In addition, there was a little radio playing rock music, very, very loud at the top of the stairs. It was a huge distraction and I had to ask her several times to please turn it down somewhat. The trip turned out to be a small nightmare really. Although the wines weren't bad (it was hard to really gauge their quality because she opened up bottles that were just about empty, and poured the remaining few drops into our glasses), we wound up just not buying anything - only because of the horrible surroundings. In fact, I just got so disgusted that I got up and left and returned to the car until the other folks arrived back (nobody bought anything and shook their heads in disgust at the surroundings). So for us, this Hutton vineyards was a huge bust - a total disappointment. And the bad thing about it all was that we were soooo looking forward to visiting this location. But folks, if you've tried other wineries (we've visited 48 of them so far), even the smallest have better decorated and more suitable wine tasting facilities than this utilitarian garage/basement scenario that Hutton had set up. Remember, a wine tasting environment has to put you in the mood for tasting...and subsequently to buy if need be. So all I can state here is what we've experienced after anticipating a wonderful visit. Never again though...... Visited October 2011

Wine: Winery: Ambiance: May 25, 2011

I will echo ncwinelover, we left with a case, but thats becuase of the owner, she was great!

Wine: Winery: Ambiance: May 12, 2010

Favorite Wine: Barbera

This is a very nice winery set in a wonderful little town in the hills of NC. The wines were good, but nothing exceptional. The tasting room itself lacks a lot to be desired-it's just a tin building like Ragapplelassie's. Overall it was a nice experience though, and I enjoyed my tasting, and will probably be back.