Carafe Wine Makers

Carafe Wine Makers is great. I have had the opportunity to taste their wines on several occasions and have been very pleased with their product. I love the idea of «making wine» as Christmas gifts or even for a very affordable girls night out! Martinis are at least $ 9 – 10 a pop and at Carafe you can make a whole batch (30 bottles) of wine with custom labels for well under what drinks and dinner would cost you, plus you get a really fun experience. Carafe also seems to have wine to cater to every palate, like a couple sweet wines… while they aren’t my favorite (i’m a red person), they would appeal to many who love a sweet riesling/​scuppernong finish to their wines. From what I tried, I loved the Midnight Cruise Cabernet Sauvignon and the Rosso Fortissimo. What I like about Carafe is that they are local, affordable, the wines are great tasting, and they are proud of what they sell and it shows.

So apparently this place is a franchise AND a winery, which I found to be bizarre and a bit of an oxymoron. A friend and I came here on their Tasting Wednesdays, which includes about 5 – 7 of their signature wines, as well as some complimentary apps to enjoy. The taste and complexity of their wine, however, was mediocre and lacking any real character. A lot of it was just BAD (think Pine-​Sol) wine. On top of that, the people working there seemed to have little to no knowledge ABOUT wine. They had a red listed on their tasting «from Europe», since that’s pretty ambiguous, I asked WHERE IN EUROPE, to which she replied «it just says Europe». Hey thanks.
Moving on, we were still curious about a so-​called winery that is a franchise, since most wineries and vineyards are independently owned and operated through the passion and knowledge of the owner. Here, it was three middle aged women, two of whom were in the back room gossiping throughout our entire tasting. I really didn’t get the sense that any of these women were passionate or knowledgeable about wine. Our taster informed us that their distributor is located in Canada somehow and they import their «juices» elsewhere. WHO SAYS «JUICES» WHEN TALKING ABOUT WINE? She told us how we could MAKE our own wine here, which intrigued me, so I asked if I could blend a merlot, cab, shiraz (I love me some blends), but she said no, that you just «pick a juice» and pour it into their convector machine. What? Afterwards, she showed us how they «age» your juice in some white plastic canister (so much for french oak barrels) and then «add preservatives» for the shelf life. Yes literally, POUR in the sulfites! I understand almost all wine has to have sulfites, but the concept of POURING the preservatives by the spoon into my «juice» just made me shudder. And it made me do more than that because I ended up buying one of their pre-​made red wines up front and after only 2 glasses had a RAGING headache. I guess those preservatives go a long way. My friend bought a bottle of their Gewürztraminer, which was pretty good in the tasting, but when we opened it at home it was totally and completely foul. The bottom of the cork had little white dots on it and the wine just tasted rotten.
They are doing one thing right though– getting the word out about WINE and encouraging people to come out through events and grassroots marketing. If nothing else, Hampton Roads needs more wine establishments, experience, and education. Sadly, this is not the place to start that movement.

OK, I kind of feel bad writing a review, but it has to be done. I wish I could give this place 3 stars because we need something in Chesapeake, but I just can’t. My friend and I are always trying to discover local restaurants and wine tastings around the Hampton Roads area. We happened to stumble across Carafe Wine Makers one evening. It was a Wednesday, which is apparently the day of the week they do wine tastings.
It’s a small place that sells various wine related gifts such as glasses, games and food/​wine pairing lists. Most of the floor space was taken up by the displays of wines that Carafe makes and sells. We walked around for a bit as we snacked on the cheese and crackers. The three women working mentioned that they were waiting for the others to arrive. Ten minutes later… no others were arriving:) We sat down at the «bar» area and one of the managers showed us the list of wines we would be sampling. We sampled 5 to 6 wines. My friend and I were trying to keep a straight face, but the notes such as «cough syrup» made by my friend made it difficult.
I still don’t really understand how this establishment works. Apparently their main headquarter, if you will, is located in Canada of all places (I think we know where this is going). They receive shipments of the wine juices from various locations and with the juices they use this fermenting process AKA large plastic bottles in a back room, wait a couple months and then bottle it. But WAIT, you can design your own labels!
Well, I felt sorry for the poor woman and I felt the need to buy a bottle. I think I bought a Gewertzaminer and my friend bought some blend. All I know is my friend got a wicked headache from her bottle and I opened my bottle the next weekend and actually dumped the entire thing out, which I have never done. I think it went bad… at least I hope that was the problem. So, unfortunately I will not be returning there, but if you are interested, they do parties!