Vina Castellano Vineyard & Winery

Let me start by saying that I am not really new to wine or wine tasting. The hubby and I have a few wine club memberships at different wineries and really enjoy the experience of drinking a bottle of wine with snacks while at a vineyard or tasting room.
Yesterday day I joined a group of my girlfriends on a limo bus trip to a few wineries and Vina Castellano was our second stop. The tasting room is in a faux cave that is quaint and pretty cozy. The girl pouring for us was nice, attentive and fairly informative. We sat at a long table and was able to bring in our olives and cheese platter while we tasted to snack on. So far so good. I am a fan of Temperanillos so I was happy to see 3 of them on the tasting menu. The wines were OK. Not terrible but not exactly the best I have ever tasted. However I decided to purchase a bottle to share with the ladies as we snacked, talked and relaxed. So far this review should be 4 stars, but this is what really knocked it down. I went up to the bar to purchase a bottle and pay for my cousins tasting fee and to my surprise they didn’t waive my tasting fee with a bottle purchase. I just bought a $ 35 bottle of wine (which should probably have been closer to a $ 25 bottle) and still had to pay a $ 7.00 tasting fee to taste 6 wines (we were told about a 7^th taste of a warm sangria that was never offered) that half ended up in the dump bucket. I was floored. The place was empty except for a group of 4 and a couple that we chatted with before they left. I get it that we were a large group of 12 ladies, but none of us were drunk or unruly. We were talking and laughing and having fun, but not being disruptive.
This is highly unfortunate because I wanted to bring my hubby back to see the cave and give me his two cents on the wine. We live close enough that we could visit often and refer friends. This will not happen. There are far too many wineries in the area that appreciate a customer buying their product.
Bummer Vina Castellano, bummer!

I cannot believe how cute and close this little spot is. Cave tastings and a pond with deck settings. This is a great escape for any Sac/​Rocklinite looking to relax for a few hours. Great wines, and apps.

Great place for tasting and a picnic. Beautiful pond and cool looking cave to taste in.

Mediocre Spanish wines. Not even close to the wines I’ve had in Spain. I give the wines 2 stars but it’s the service and attitude of the winery I give 1 star. We were a group of 6 ladies that hired a limo to take us out on a beautiful fall afternoon for wine tasting in Placer County wine Trail. It was our first time doing this trail having gone to Napa a lot in the past. We had previously gone to Wise Winery (excellent service and wine) and Mt Vernon Winery. Both places had good wines and excellent service. Both wineries gave you free wine tasting if you bought wines from them. However with Vina Castellano that was not case if you arrived in a limo. What difference does it make what we arrived in! We told the girl behind the counter that wasn’t the case with the previous 2 wineries we went too. She answered in not a very nice tone that well they probably didn’t see you came in a limo even though we told her they did know she said there wasn’t anything she could do because that’s the owner’s rule. I understand she only works there but she didn’t have to use that ‘whatever’ tone of voice with us. We ended up not buying any wines from there. They lost business because we did buy a total of 18 bottles of wine from the first 2 wineries.

Wines were phenomenal, service was even better. We’ll definitely be back and are strongly considering their wine club. Loved the vertical flight of temprenillos, my favorite was the ’09. They sell by the glass or bottle after the tasting. We chose to do a couple glasses and bring a bottle of the ’10 temp home. Teena, the wine maker, also makes seasonal concoctions– a pumpkin and apple sangria like mix. Both were very yummy!

We bought a Groupon, as Vina Castellano’s website encourages it’s patrons to do, that included tapas and wine tasting for two. I called ahead to make the reservation and the young woman in the cool, cave, tasting room was ready for us. She seated us and promptly brought out a platter with a nice selection of three Spanish cheeses, three sliced meats, marcona almonds, olives, chocolate and biscuit, and a little bucket filled with bread and crackers. She poured generous tastings of each wine and told us a little something about them. We celebrated our anniversary with this tasting date for about two hours. We brought home two bottles of the wines we enjoyed the most. One is the blend that is called Abuelita, and the other one is one of the tempranillos. With the Groupon it was a wonderful deal. I don’t think the selection would have been worth the full price without the Groupon but it is offered frequently so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get one before coming in. I bought ours the morning we visited! I am looking forward to opening up both of the bottles we brought home. I am a little disappointed that the bottle of Abuelita does not say what grapes were used in the blend. I do have the information however because I snapped a photo of the information on the tasting menu. It’s a very nice winery. We had a wonderful time.

I wish that they had half stars… however what set me over the edge to rate this place a 4 instead of a 3 was because I enjoyed every single wine they offered in their tasting. I came here the day before my birthday with Ron. It was my first time visiting, even though he had been there many times before.
What sets this place apart is the cave. It is very romantic and very intimate. I would love to see a wedding go down in there. It would be magical. Another reason why I liked this place was that it WASN’T packed! That was because it was a sunday during the niner game :)
The wine that we bought was the 2009 Tempranillo. I really enjoy that wine.
My only complaint would be that we didn’t really get super educated on how they are different from other wineries around the area. They specialize in Spanish wines, but we never got the down low on that.
Overall, it’s a very pretty place and its intimate I would have just liked a little more education on the wine, and how its made. All of that stuff snooty wine people love to know!

I was expecting a fun tasting experience from Vina Castellano — I mean, Spanish wines in a cave! — but we were underwhelmed. The cave is beautiful, and we enjoyed the ambiance and the opportunity to get out of the heat. There’s a gift shop area with some fun items and an area to sit down if you come with a group.
Most tasting menus have a description of each of the wines, but Vina Castellano’s only listed the type of wine and year. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the tasting room employees had been willing to talk to us about the wines as they were pouring, but they just poured our samples and walked away. They’re not exactly salespeople. The wines themselves weren’t anything special. We just paid the tasting fees and left.

So as I shared before, when my sister and I visited Vina Castellano on Sept. 30 my experience at this winery was less than stellar. A comment was heard that ruined our time there. I have since received a very warm heartfelt and sincere apology from the owner. He explained and shared a lot about his winery and the people that work for him. And while I stand by what I heard I whole heartedly accept and appreciate his response and effort to correct the situation. That being said I will absolutely visit Vina Castellano again and I will definitely buy their wines because they are really quite good. The winery is a beautiful stop on the tour and the tasting cave is really cool.

There was a $ 5 or $ 7 fee for wine tasting, depending which you chose. We did the $ 5 & I believe that it was about 5 or 6 tastings.
At least 3 were Tempranillo. The lady there was ok, gave a little history behind the property.
There were 2 large glass dispensers filled with some type of beverage, I asked what it was. She said that one was white sangria & the other was red sangria. We didn’t ask what it was for & she didn’t offer any info. This wasn’t on the tasting menus but an empl came by & did pour 2 small tastings & walked away with them, so I know tastings were available but not offered to us.
The cave atmosphere was nice. There are tables in the back. There were a lot of ppl there.
Was an average experience, some of the wines were ok, probably won’t return.
Nice venue, so-​so staff, mediocre wines.
Tell ppl about your sangrias, that are sitting right there on the counter, please… :/​
Three stars is being generous.

This place is TO DIE FOR. Stunning wines… no…exceptional wines! I have been everywhere on the Trail and this place gets it. Great people, great wines… beautiful scenery. It doesn’t get any better. Check this place out.

Vina Castellano provided an overall fine wine tasting experience. The atmosphere of the mock cave was a nice touch. My wife and I love wine tastings and really try to explore every opportunity to find new and exciting wines.
My wife is not a lover of red wine, however she does explore them in an attempt to see if there is one she enjoys. The only negative
Thing about our experience was that our hostess commented «honey we only have reds here». There was one exception but it wasn’t really up to par.
The Spanish influence in their wines is quite obvious an the Tempranillo was overall nice. The wines we tasted were all very average without any outstanding character or quality. The atmosphere was nice, and overall our hostess was good, too bad the wine was jus average

Vina Castellano Winery Auburn Ca
This winery does have a really unique grounds layout. A small lake on one side and then the tasting room that is built into the side of a small hill across the other side. Once you step into the cave style tasting room, there are two counters to begin your Spanish wine tasting experience. The staff is not very organized with larger crowds, should incorporate a 10 per one sort of system (just a suggestion to help service)
We moved through the flight of red wines and the small group of friends I was with compared notes. I believe that the Abuelito was a good effort and could be a rising star for them. Overall the flagship wine is the Tempranillo, offered in several vintages and easily the groups only choice of recommendation. If you have any interest in possibly expanding your wine palate to include Mediterranean wines Vino Castellano might offer you just that chance.
Salute
Stephen P.

I went here because they had a groupon. It was $ 70 (a $ 144 value) for 4 people for tastings and tapas. What a ripoff. We got two meat and cheese plates which were apparently valued at $ 35 each and wine tasting for 4 people, normal value $ 7. I don’t see how they value this at $ 144. I know my way around wines and foothills wine at that and there are far better wines around. They were all oxidized and long past their prime. The only reason they get two stars is that Dawn and Adele were great. Save your money and go elsewhere… wise villa and lone buffalo are much better!

We went for the $ 25 groupon Tapas –meaning small plates– and came away disappointed. One it was freezing in their tasting cave, two their pours were ridiculously meager and the food (cheese, cold bread, olives, nuts, cold meats) overwhelmed any chance of understanding what the wine maker was trying to do.
All in all I wouldn’t recommend the make-​believe Tapas servings, but the wines were pretty good. The Tapas and their meager pours were a waste of time.

We love this place. The tasting room is gorgeous, inside a cave. We’ve been here multiple times and the people are very kind. The wine is delicious! And that’s what really matters, right?! Small tasting fee of $ 5 or $ 7 but that’s waved when you buy a bottle.

I went with a friend of mine to celebrate our recent life accomplishments. We’re both in our early 20’s, and so we were honestly apprehensive that we would be treated differently because we weren’t the standard wine tasters. But it wasn’t like that at all.
Both Dawn and Adele were great hostesses, and Adele really took the time to talk to us and even introduced us and our successes to other customers coming in.
So the company was good, the environment was original but I can see it could have it heating and ventilation issues.
The wine was great, it was overall a good experience. I’d like to return

I will not pretend to know wine. I went with friends on a little wine tour and stopped here. Adorable little cave and beautiful grounds. I personally am a dessert wine drinker (I know not a real sophisticated) and while tasting a red a friend in my party commented that I liked sweet wines. One of the ladies responded with «Well you won’t find any sweet wines here. You can buy a glass of Sangria if you want». Other then hello this was the our first conversation with this woman. As far as we were concerned she was rude and definitely did not make the experience enjoyable.

I bought a Groupon for a Tapas dinner here and have had an impossible time using it. A couple different committed dates were canceled, because «they made mistakes»… likely they got bigger commitments that were not «at a loss» like the Groupon. It’s not easy to schedule a wine dinner for 6, way in advance, very limited days of the week, all to get canceled on a few different times. I went in to try and use the Groupon (at face value, not the «Groupon value» — IE how much I paid and the legal value as a gift certificate) on Wine. They refused, telling me it wasn’t worth it to them, as they lost money and the wine dinner gave them «more exposure».
While at their place we tried their wine. It was OK but far from spectacular. I can’t name a regional winery I don’t prefer to them.
I’ve given them 2 stars, even though my experiences have been far from stellar because they have a beautiful ‘grotto’ and vineyard and the lady doing tastings was rather nice.

Pretty place. Decent wines and affordable prices. Their reds are on the drier side, if that’s how you like them then this is your kinda place. Gotta try their 05 cabernet franc. If you don’t want the long drive to Napa-​this can be your sub. Worth visiting!