Charles Smith Wines

Great customer service, loved it here. Wines were great, friendly staff, cool hipster vibe. The names and labels were great. Overall great time and I have been back several times since my first visit.

We stopped by the downtown location after a day of wine tasting. What a great space! We tasted their K Vintners line up the day before, decided to just sit back with a glass and some snacks. We ordered the almonds and a cheese plate. Perfect way to end the day. Big windows, big sound system. Comfy couch and great people watching. It seemed busy, their employees were bustling – but friendly, funny, seemed like they were having a good time too. New favorite spot.

We would also give negative stars if we could. Customer service is addressed in many other reviews so I won’t go there. I will address the confusing tasting fee structure, low quality of wines, and high prices.
Tasting fees: We were told $ 5 to taste CS wines; $ 10 to taste K and CS wines. We agreed to the $ 10. We tasted a few CS wines before moving onto the K wines. None struck our fancy so we asked to pay our fees. $ 29 later, we were out of there. How did $ 29 come to be? No idea. Obviously we paid separate fees but we still don’t understand.
Wine quality: We visit Walla Walla yearly. We have been tasting all over Washington and to California’s wine country. This was by far the lowest quality «good wine» I’ve tried. Disappointing to say the least.
High prices: way overpriced. Compared to the other wineries that aren’t appointment only, the prices were way off. $ 80 for the only drinkable wine there. We found much better wine elsewhere in WW.
The ambiance was very cool and hipster and earns the one star. It felt a bit more like a brewery. We were excited to try their wine but the quality fell way short of typical WW wine.

If I could give them negative stars, I would.$ 5 «uncorking fee» for a twist top! To sit and enjoy a bottle we had just purchased from there. She let us know about this ridiculous fee and before we could tell her we would take it somewhere else instead she had already opened the wine and therefor had to charge us the fee. Then they had the gull to tell us this is common practice! Are you kidding me? I have tasted wine all over woodinville and walla walla and this was the ONLY establishment that did this. Stay away if you don’t want a bad experience!

Absolutely horrendous. We got into town today and spent some time wine tasting and decided to add Charles Smith Wines to our route. My father, mother and my nephew sat down on a couch while my sister and I stood in line to get set up with a tasting. Upon reaching the front of the line, the person behind us began speaking to the person that should have been helping us and we were completely skipped after spending 15 minutes waiting. When we mentioned that we had been skipped your people could not have shown any less concern for the situation. They were disconnected and disinterested. Great wine but absolutely awful customer experience.

Whether this place has decent wine or not has yet to be determined. They would not allow me to taste wine without ID. Given that I’m 58 and they can’t tell whether I’m old enough to taste, I’m highly suspicious of their judgment. The Boy Grenache tastes like dill pickles, according to my daughter, who did have her ID. Enough said

Nice place, great location. Paid my entry fee and went to get a drink. Bought a bottle of red, and was charged a Corking fee on a bottle purchased there at that moment. I didn’t feel that was correct.

Stopped by early on a weekday and practically had the place to ourselves.
The hostess was very friendly and knowledgeable and gave us some hints on other places to visit.
You can’t beat the vibe of the tasting room.
We tried the K Vintner Wines and while they are very heavily Sarah based they demonstrated a lot of variety and were very good.
While I can’t remember her name the young lady that runs the wine club is outstanding. She definitely goes the extra mile to help out.

Cool laid back tasting room. We went with the cheaper flight and they were all very unique. My favorite was the Kung Fu Girl. I love the label design and their merch. Best part: They distribute to Texas! I found Kung Fu Girl at my local HEB at a great price. Woohoo!

This winery has the potential to be really great. The space is super cool, and the wine is alright. Not great. I think if they stepped it up a notch, and filled the place with more décor, maybe even some more seating… added a couple more people to serve etc.

We hit Charles Smith on our way out of town, which meant that we were arriving at the very odd hour of 10am on a Tuesday. We had the place to ourselves, but no one made us feel awkward or rushed.
If you go, you should know that you will have a choice between a cheap flight ($ 5 for 6 tastes of under-​$ 20 wines) or a more expensive flight ($ 10 for 6 tastes of any wine). We went cheap, and discovered that the wines were very nice considering the price.
But what we really loved is that the employee explained each wine extremely thoroughly; she went over regional growing and style differences, the aging process, where the grapes of each wine had been grown, etc.
Then she did us an amazing favor: she started pouring free samples of the more expensive wines so that we could make a fair comparison. She explained these just as thoroughly as the other wines, so we learned a ton. She was great!
The venue is minimalist modern, and so are the labels. You’ll either love it or find it too hipster-​ish. It depends on you and your preferences.
One other thing to note: food items were available, and so were tables and chairs. We didn’t avail ourselves of either, but thought they would be very nice for folks who have hit far too many wine tasting rooms in one weekend.

Where do I even begin with this place?
The service was completely indifferent… the pourer operating the bar yesterday was clearly in the mood to rush us through the tasting. She kept pouring into my glass even though my fiancée wasn’t finished with her glass. Unlike every other tasting room we visited, she didn’t even make a token attempt to ask us where we were from, etc. It was the only tasting room in Walla Walla where we didn’t feel welcomed. It wasn’t busy either — two other groups of people left shortly after we began our tasting.
The wine was fine, but it wasn’t spectacular… nothing really leapt out at us. I did like the riesling though, so we decided to get a bottle of that.
But the straw that broke the camel’s back is that our single bottle of wine purchase did not cover two tasting fees — only one. We have been to tens of tasting rooms in Walla Walla, Woodinville, and Prosser, and I have never encountered one that didn’t waive both fees with a single bottle purchase. It wreaked of stinginess… we won’t be returning.

I Have to give them 3 stars. We had gone in the day before to try to get a tasting in, There were 2 people at the tasting bar, and 1 person sitting in the lounge area. So my husband I walked up to the tasting bar, and waited, and waited and waited. After about 10 minutes we asked the 2 other people at the bar if anyone is here both of them at the same time had a long drawn out «ummm…yeaaaaaaaaaah.» To that I replied If anyone does come tell them they just lost customers today.
So I would add a star for this next part, but I’ll stick with three.
What a difference a day makes, we decided to try them again the next day, and we ended up having some of the wine to taste. I lady behind the counter this day was really nice and was a pleasure to talk too. We left with 2 bottles of wine.

Live Music so loud I could not communicate with my wife unless I shouted into her ear from 1 inch away. K wines viognier served luke warm –let me out of here.

I know, its only rock and roll, but I like it!
From its Olsen Kunding designed tasting room with exposed brick, industrial metal, alternative music track, and concrete floors, to the wines themselves, this tasting room experience is completely unique. I’m personally in love with the sparse black and white graphic design on the bottles and the BIG show-​stopping taste of the K-Vintner’s Royal City Washington State Syrah. This place makes me feel like I may be a rock n roll girl after all.
We had a personalized tasting room experience, hosted by a knowledgeable young woman who knew her product and had a friendly and inclusive attitude.
It was a quiet moment in the tasting room when we arrived, but I have to say as a family of 5, with two adults, two grandparents and a 6 year old, we were all treated well, learned a bit about the wines, and were able to taste while our daughter danced to the music. Not bad.

i would like to say something good about this place since the space is pretty cool and the wines are good but this guy’s moodiness and attitude leaves little to be desired. There are so many other tasting rooms in Walla Walla where the wine is good and you don’t have to deal with Charles arrogance.

Easily our favorite of the Downtown Walla Walla wineries, the new (spring 2011) Charles Smith Wines tasting room combines his three lines into one sleek, huge, flexible space.
Barn-​like rafters, polished concrete floors, sliding metal room dividers. Alternative rock music playing a little too loud for comfortable conversation — so it was just right for us. A no-​bullshit, no-​wine club approach to sales which lets the tasting room staff focus on the wines and customers rather than on selling. Oh yeah, and kick-​ass wines, most of which are from his excellent under-​twenty-​dollar line.
We bought a case, including his $ 12 Pinot Grigio and $ 20 Cab Sauv. We also bought a tee-​shirt, and completely bought his rock and roll concept.
If you like this, you should also visit K Vintners, his original Walla Walla tasting room. Which was our favorite of the trip two years ago. And his just-​opened Anchor Bar which is wayyyy too hip for Waitsburg, 30 mins north of Walla Walla in the middle of wheat-​world.