Black Sheep Winery

Our pourer was very pleasant. The wine was horrible.

The best wine here is the sparkling at the end and it tastes like children’s cough syrup.
The wine is awful and the lady helping us wasn’t very friendly, she seemed kind of annoyed by us.
It was a bummer as it was our first stop on Main St. Luckily the wines improve after this place

This place is terrible. Apparently this is one of the original vineyards in the Murphy’s area so there’s some nostalgia built into it, but even though it was free its not worth the stop. The wine is awful. The service is much like the wine.

Nice people. Wine was excellent and a great value. We walked away with half a case and a beautiful port for $ 75.

free tasting, polite personable staff, helped with port, they only do one its not bad, a nice mix of tawny and ruby, tried the sparkling wine with the port, yeah i was sold. nice blend of fruits and left me wanting more.

The photo of the Amazon search for wine keys is for the Black Sheep employee who, when I asked if they sold wine keys told me she had never heard of them. When I explained, she said I must mean a corkscrew. She proceeded to tell me in a «certain tone of voice» that in all her years in the hospitality business and going to hospitality classes she had never heard the term wine key. After that I went elsewhere for a wine key.

Visited here for the first time with the husband. They offer free tastings of their whites and reds. I was pleasantly surprised on several of their bottles considering they were going for $ 10. We enjoyed the white blend, and several of the reds. The staff were very courteous and we had a wonderful tasting experience!

DO NOT COME HERE.
Unless you love employees and management with snarky attitudes. Last time we were here it was excellent! The woman working sold us on everything! With that said Black Sheep was at the top of my list to visit this year on vacation.
Instead my clothing choice was insulted. I was told by Cathy I looked «too fancy» with a scrunched up face and that it was going to be «too hot» for what I was wearing. I just so happened to be wearing a strapless, cotton dress. What could be better in the heat than a dress?
When confronted, Cathy was very unapologetic, refused to give any managers/​owners contact information (not even a name) and insisted that the managers/​owners were out of town with no way to contact them.
We also sent an email requesting to speak to the manager or for any contact information that could put us in touch with someone. They flat out ignored our request, sent a crappy apology from someone named Liz, and left it at that. They ignored our reply email and any other communication that we tried.
Do not support a company that has a management staff that refuses to even speak on the phone to a disgruntled customer who has spent a lot of money here in the past.

I don’t have anything positive to say other than the tasting room is adorable. Free wine tasting does not mean quality wine. From the start, when they put the crappy wine glasses in front of us I knew it wasn’t going to be very good. The wine was not good, it was just bad. I think I dumped everything I tried.
Tasting room employee was less than pleasant as well. In her defense, she was the only person working there, but when I politely asked for my next taste to have sparkling, she says in a snarky tone: «I’ll get there… you can always tell a person from the city because they’re always in a rush.» I wasn’t in a rush, I simply asked for my next tasting as she neared us. She was downright unpleasant from the get-​go. I apologized & we left shortly after. Needless to say, we won’t be back.

This place is amazing! Loved every wine I tried here and even bought some to take home with me (which is rare because I’m picky). The staff were a little off but still nice and friendly. Might have to make another stop on the way out of town to grab a couple more bottles!

Oh man. This place is amazing. The pourer was sweet and the wines were tasty. I almost felt white tasting all of these pretty wines in the middle of the day when people should be working.

I came, I drank, I enjoyed, I left with a mixed case. Black Sheep is lovely, even if the staff at the tasting room is a little sassy.
Favorites: 2009 Zinfandel and their port

Great little place, i love that there was no tasting fee, it’s just unfortunate that none of the wineries are allowed to ship to Louisiana :-/

Have been here many times and do like their wines and have a few bottles in my wine cellar. I don’t really care for white wines so rarely taste them. There reds are very good. The staff is always very friendly and they are dog friendly also. Black Sheep also can be found on the shelf at grocery stores.

Black Sheep, thank you for being one of the few FREE tasting rooms in the area. Thank you for providing an excellent knowledgeable experience, as well as offering recommendations on other tasting rooms according to what we were looking for AND local recreation.
This was the best tasting room we visited all day! Others were snooty, had little or no variety in selections and wanted $ 3 to $ 5 for a tasting of even one wine… lame! The girl behind the counter was super cool and down to earth, unlike many of the other tasting rooms we walked into, and promptly walked back out of.
I bought the Black Sheep Raspberry Sparkling wine which is truly excellent. Their dessert wine was also really good along with their Lily Pad Rose. I believe these guys had one of the most complete offerings in selections of wines we saw that day.
Simply wonderful… this was our first tasting room experience of the day… I only wish we had just stopped there…

*Cue the bass line*
I couldn’t get this song out of my head the whole time I was tasting. No wonder all the yuppies were giving me the crooky eye as I was grinning and sipping my wine.
I like their setup. Quaint, small townish, free to taste whatever they are offering, and most importantly, complimentary pours. This is how wine tasting used to be, yes, even Napa Valley. No pretense, just point, they pour, you taste and hopefully you’ll learn something.
I learned that their strong points are their «punch you in the mouth» type of zins, very California. There is pepper, cedar, lots of tannin (even for a 4 year old) and lots of dark, red fruit. I got to compare their popular Amador County Zin to the Calaveras County Zin. Calaveras was way more fruit forward which is why it came home with me ($ 20) as I figured it will be featured at one of my summer bbqs.
This is why I love wine tasting, to be able to taste specific growing areas and to be able to compare, which in my opinion, is a great way to form an opinion. So make a choice, would you like to go with «this» or would you like to go with «that»?

Arriving just before closing, my friend and I were very happy to make it into Black Sheep Winery’s tasting room in Murphy’s under the wire. The tasting room was done up in sort of a classy, country theme — wood floors & cabinets.
Our hostess was a real sweetie — friendly, polite, conversational and frank — we had a very nice experience.
The wines were all pretty good — I bought five different wines to try out again at home — the Cinsault was pretty good and I can’t wait to go get another bottle of Frick’s cinsault to try them together. Our hostess informed us that there are only 150 acres of cinsault planted in California! Yum.
Our hostess also recommended the restaurant next door which was delicious!

Baa Baa Black Sheep…
Reading some of the other reviews it seems like Black Sheep Winery is quite the black sheep of the Murphys tasting rooms (pun intended). Fortunately for me, my visits have always been positive. Of course any visit involving wine can’t be too bad. ;)
There were two pourers the day I popped in and both were extremely friendly. I could tell that they both enjoyed their jobs. I fell in love with the Cinsault which is a varietal I’ve never heard of before. They also had a nice Rose (pretend there is an accent on the «e»). I picked up a bottle of each. I wasn’t fond of the sparkling wine with a hint of raspberry because it reminded me of New York Seltzers which I no longer like (too many of them in Jr. High = Ewww).
Overall, I have never had a bad experience at Black Sheep and have found a few good selections. If you are in the area, you may want to give Black Sheep a try.
Cheers. :)

We love the wines in Calaveras County and are trying to expand our knowledge so we started our day off at Black Sheep. Unfortunately I have nothing to say about the wine because the service was so horrendous, we had to leave before we even began the tasting.
We walked into an empty tasting room and greeted the woman behind the counter with smiles in anticipation of tasting some new wines. She barely gave us a smirk and said I need your IDs. I guess that was her way of welcoming us to the winery. My cousin is quite funny and tried to break the ice by saying, even his and pointed to my husband who is 13 years my senior. She quickly barked back, «Like I said, if you want to taste wine, I NEED your ID.»
Since I was the driver that day, I wasn’t going to taste so I of course didn’t hand over my ID. Her very round face got red and she gave me a look of death and repeated, «ALL OF YOUR IDs» (if only I could convey her miserable attitude and facial expression in that line, you would totally understand why we all froze). Okay, at this point I had had enough of the horrible treatment. I very sarcastically said I wasn’t tasting so I would not be giving her my ID. Plus as we stormed out of there and slammed the door I made a comment about her terrible attitude. I know… very passive-​aggressive but this woman was an evil force not to be reckoned with!
How could you put someone with the rudest attitude who hates people in a place serving wine? The experience at places like Milliaire and Twisted Oak erased the horrible experience we had at Black Sheep. It’s a shame too because that one experience will forever keep me from trying (or buying for that matter) what could possibly have been a great wine.

If you like a classic full bodied traditional California style Zinfandel, this is the place to get it. Their zin is peppery, complex, and delicious. It’s priced appropriately, and embodies everything you’d expect from a California Zin.