Macauley Vineyard

Excellent wine! Do yourself a favor and stop in for a tasting! Hailey is very knowledgeable about all the wines and answered any questions we had! We can not wait to go back!

Been a fan of Macauley wines for quite some time. Our host, Hailey was very knowledgeable and pleasantly passionate about the wines. She told us she had even done some harvest work on the wines in 2013 so she could become more intimately familiar with the Macauley winemaking process.
This is an intimate appointment only tasting experience in a beautiful small home on the Hunnicutt Winery property where the Macauley wines are made. It really feels like you taste in your own cozy living room. The pace was relaxed and we were able to ask Hailey lots of questions. The great view across the Napa Valley was an added bonus. The Macauley tasting experience is the perfect alternative to crowded tasting rooms. It is the way wine tasting should be done.
We thought all the current wines were excellent but particularly enjoyed the Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Cabernets (both) and Chardonnay. Though we were never pressured to buy any wines… we bought plenty and our friends at home have loved them.

My wife and I visit Napa Valley every year for vacation (this was our 13^th trip to the valley). Normally, we purchase 4 – 5 cases of wine when we visit — some of this for ourselves and some of this for Christmas presents (this trip we purchased four cases). We wanted to do something different this trip which was to visit only smaller wineries that we had never visited. We came across a local winemaker while having a drink at Hurley’s (didn’t get his name) who happened to mention that we should try Macauley, which we did.
This visit/​tasting was THE WORST EXPERIENCE that we had ever had while visiting the valley. Our host was Haley. She started to pour us two tastings, one for me and one for my wife. My wife stated that we would share one tasting because she was driving. Haley said to my wife, «I’ll pour you both a glass and you can just smell. I’ll end up pouring it down the drain anyway».
So, we had the tasting (we ended up dumping much of the wine she poured as we didn’t want two tastings). We tasted a Chard and a couple Cabs that were all average in our opinion, their Zin was good in our opinion — however we felt that none of the wine was good enough for us to purchase. The view was nice, the tasting room was nice, they did not offer any snacks to pair with the wine.
When the tasting was complete, I told Haley that we would pay for the tasting. Haley stated that each tasting was $ 45 so the total would be $ 90. We reminded her that we only ordered one tasting. She stated that since she poured two that we needed to pay for two. She then told us that if we purchased at least three bottles of wine that she would waive the fees. I did not feel like fighting with her as our vacation was so perfect up to this point so we purchased three bottles of Zin for $ 35 each.
We walked out of Macauley feeling completely scammed and with three bottles of wine that we didn’t want. If you are planning to visit this winery, please make sure that you completely understand the parameters of the visit before you visit and before you taste.
There are so many great tasting experiences/​wineries/​wines in Napa — in our opinion, this is NOT one of them. I would not recommend this to anyone and I hope that somehow the winemaker that recommended this winery to us somehow gets a chance to read this review…