Hahn Estates

We love visiting Hahn — great wines, friendly service, all in a beautiful setting.

Shout out to Janene who made our wine tasting and picnic most enjoyable! For great wines and a great view, Hahn Winery is a must!

Hahn is a great place to wine taste with exquisite views of The Pinnacles National Park. The wine is very delicious and it’s a great place to bring a picnic basket. Give the place a try, and bring snacks!

Great day in the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA!
We arrived early for our ATV tour (pre-​booked online) and were welcomed warmly by Molly, a transplanted Swede and former sous-​chef de cuisine who chatted with us as she set things up.
David led our ATV tour, which was a great way to explore the rugged, beautiful terrain of the vineyards while learning just about everything about them, including the Hahn family history (their name means «rooster» in German), Pinot Noir grape clones, Sustainability In Practice (SIP) farming, and how they keep deer from eating grapes without harming them (hint: what does a puma attack sound like?).
David is a long-​time area resident & oenophile with an amazingly eclectic resume (Deputy Sheriff for 25 years, actor, playwright) that makes him the perfect tour guide.
Great wine and ample pours, too! Liked them so much we joined their wine club, which included a comp for the ATV tours!
Thank you Molly and David for a wonderful day of wine touring and tasting — we’ll be back!

Beautiful venue for tasting delicious wines and enjoy a picnic with your family and friends. It was worth drive and will do it again in the near future. Highly recommend!

Excellent
Goes to show that hospitality and personal service makes all the difference
Thanks to Laura and Tom, Alejandro and the sausage dude!!! You all are tremendous and your dedication to making the customer feel welcome is very apparent
As a bonus your wines are solid and the prices reasonable… Bravo Hahn!!!

Buying a bottle of Hahn wine at the supermarket or wine shop is one thing; sipping chilled Santa Lucia Highlands rosé from an outdoor deck overlooking the Salinas Valley, with the unmistakable granite-​crowned peaks of Pinnacles National Park looming out in the distance, while an amazingly nimble tasting room cat (named Chardonnay) leisurely tiptoes around your wine glasses, crackers, and cheese — well, that’s another thing entirely. isn’t it?
While some tasting rooms connected to wineries whose production is large enough to warrant national and international distribution have a corporate look and feel to them, often because they ARE corporate-​owned entities, Hahn exudes the family-​friendly atmosphere of its husband-​and-​wife founders and their adult children who currently run the place, with the help of full-​time winemakers, marketers, lab technicians, vineyard managers, and a talented team of pourers and guides (who will drive you around the estate in 4-​person ATVs and then serve wines in the barrel room, for $ 45). Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that the Salinas Valley outstretched below the Highlands is a working agricultural community, replete with pickers in the field and organic Andy Boy vegetables toiling their way skyward under often intense afternoon sun, thick morning fogs, and scouring evening winds. Picture-​postcard pretty views marred by million-​dollar mcmansions and outlandish wine palaces this isn’t.
Monterey County’s underappreciated but overvalued River Road Wine Trail is dotted with a range of wineries from the micro to the semi-​large. Hahn clocks in around 100,000 cases, if you factor in their supermarket offerings (the ones under $ 15 retail) and second labels, Smith & Hook and Boneshaker (Lodi Zinfandel). At the tasting room, you’ll be able to sample wines from all of their four Santa Lucia Highlands vineyards (Smith, Hook, Lone Oak, and Doctor’s, just down the road on Foothill on your way to the River Road intersection). You’ll also be able to wax nostalgic about the «real rooster» that once graced Hahn labels before the sleeker, more abstract, red Rohrschach cock took over, as the more realistic-​looking one still graces the attractive wooden entrance sign that directs you up the hill from the main road, over a cattle guard, past a line of stately pines, and into the tasting room parking area overlooking the valley below.
If you choose one of the two $ 15 tastings (waived with $ 40 purchase of 1 – 2 bottles), you’ll also get to enjoy the award-​winning single-​vineyard Pinot Noir bottlings released under the Lucienne label that features a candle-​tipped crown worn in artistic renderings of the Christian saint, Santa Lucia, for whom the majestic mountains and vineyard-​studded highlands are named. Tasting room guests, along with wine club members, can choose from the limited production Winery Selection offerings, which include some of the most intriguing wines in the entire Hahn lineup. These include the rosé of Pinot Noir already mentioned (only a few hundred cases or less, released each spring), a relatively rare Pinot Noir blanc bottling (Pinot Noir juice bled from the skins and fermented like Champagne, but without the bubbles or extended aging), a Malbec, a Riesling, and a superb Doctor’s vineyard Syrah, whose grape vines were recently regrafted to Pinot. Pity! Hopefully another vineyard-​designate Syrah will enter the line-​up to replace the one lost.
If you’re lucky, seek out experienced wine tasting room pourer, Tom S. (he’s the one depicted on the Hahn web site pouring the wine to three bemused looking, well dressed young women). A San Jose native, who spent time in Italy and Switzerland before relocating to Monterey County decades ago, he has the dry wit and deep wisdom needed to walk you through the nuances of the wines on the menu and can also help you out with food pairings once you’ve settled on your bottles of choice. While the 2015 SLH rosé is already a thing of the past (having opened it on the deck and finished it at home that evening), our other purchases — 2013 Doctor’s Pinot and Syrah — will get some cellar aging for 3 – 5 years before being opened. Had they been pouring them the day of our visit, we’d likely have brought home a Riesling or Noir Blanc. On a return visit, we’ll sign up for a 10:30 am ATV vineyard tour and come ready with picnic fare in tow, perhaps on a crisp fall day around harvest time. Nothing like sampling the fruits of the vine after a September Salinas Valley wind has tousled your hair and prickled your skin. It’s hard to find fault with the state of California wine as long as places like Hahn remain viable in private hands!

Once again my beautiful girlfriend and I had an amazing time at this gorgeous setting during the release party yesterday. Wine was amazing and the staff was equally so. Shout out to Jenelle and Laura Lee for making our visit that much more welcoming. Thank you Hahn Estates!

Jerome gave us an awesome tasting! We really enjoyed both of the chefs cuvée tasting! The environment is super friendly, also dog friendly! We brought our corgi here and she got plenty of attention! If you spend $ 40 you get both of your $ 15 tasting fees waived! Totally worth it! Great views of the Santa Lucia highlands

Great service! Awesome smiles! Love visiting Hahn! The view is also amazing! Every time I visit, I not only encounter great people at the counter, but I also meet new people. It’s a nice welcoming and very positive atmosphere. Wine tasting is one of a kind!

What a jewel! The staff was amazing! Very knowledgeable with the most hospitable greeting. They were very proud of their wines and excited to share! Tasted through the pinots as well as their cab. They even do VIP tours in ATVs!

Superb wines, especially the Pinot Noir which is Hahn’s speciality

Had a phenomenal experience here today. My fiancé and I shared our anniversary weekend trying wines at several SLH wineries but love it here at Hahn.
I called yesterday for an appointment and was sweetly greeted on the other end of the phone by Bridget (I know this is the wrong spelling and feel terrible I can’t recall how to spell it correctly now). She was fantastic though. Suggested a reserved table with a cheese tray.
We showed up just at noon for our appointment during a busy day for the tasting room. She greeted us and served us delicious wines of all sorts. We enjoyed the cheese tray overlooking the views. Once we finished that we were able to enjoy the ATV tour that included even more stunning views and the production facility.
I highly recommend visiting. The hospitality was wonderful. We’ll definitely be back soon.

Great wine, and amazing views. I would definitely come back here again.

Really amazing experience with beautiful views, a lovely variety of wines (both red and white) and an adorable dog that our daughter loved playing with. If you’ve been to Napa/​Sonoma one too many times (is that possible?), but love wine, the Santa Lucia vinyards are a great alternative and Hahn estate is one of the best.
In the tasting room, Jerome was very knowledgeable, engaging and relally tried to ensure that we purchased wine that we really liked. A lovely afternoon off 101 on our drive back from San Diego!

I was really looking forward to coming here, but was very disappointed. Our pourer, was a nice women however seemed drunk and had to excuse herself multiple times to the restroom. She couldn’t tell us a whole lot of the wineries history. When having the flight we picked she would pour from the wrong flight or skip over the ones we wanted to try. She only talked to us when we were done and asked if we wanted to join the wine club. I did not have the experience that so many have told me I would have here.

What a fantastic stop we had on the way to Sacramento from Long Beach. I just happened to be the passenger and randomly Unilocaled «winery» right around Soledad. I’m so glad I did! The winery is gorgeous. There is an amazing deck overlooking the vineyard and valley below. The tasting was fantastic with the fee being waived with $ 40 purchase. The Pinot was out of this world, and needless to say, I walked away becoming a new member of their wine club. Great service and great wine. Stop here!

I’m probably the only one who is giving this establishment a 1 star. Went with a party of 5 adults very close to the stated 5pm closing time. Upon arrival, there was still clearly at least 25 patrons still being served. Wine was still being poured.
Unfortunately we were told by one female staff member that she could not serve us anymore. She also asked her male superior who was on site as well and he personally turned us down, stating that they could not start pouring wine for us at that time.
We remained on the premises on the patio for the next 15 min, as we observed the 10 or so people there near us still having their glasses filled and lounging. I suppose they must have arrived 5 minutes before we had.
Three people in our party were from out of town excited to try this winery, so we were disappointed that our business was blatantly turned down by this establishment.
Skip this one. What owners would turn down easy business?

Just finished visiting Hahn wine tasting room and had an excellent customer service experience. We had Bridgette and Paul as our experts and they answered all the questions we had, very knowledgeable and very polite. Paul was great! He poured us decent pours, and was engaging in conversation!
The atmosphere was great! Good for groups and couples. I went with my sister and it worked out great, cheese platter and a blanc wine. Perfect! Enjoy!

Truly a phenomenal venue and operation. Incredible views of green valleys, rows of vines, and in the distance? Pinnacles, carving a rugged profile against the sky.
The wine is top notch, with many varietals to be had.
Definitely worth the detour or short drive as you approach or live on the Monterey peninsula, respectively.
Cheers Hahn!