My husband and I participated in a Platypus Tour through Napa Valley two years ago and very much enjoyed the experience - the wineries that we visited were interesting and of high quality and we ended up joining two different wine clubs as a result. We were in Napa this weekend for a conference and decided to do another Platypus Tour. This time we were extremely disappointed at the quality of the wineries. We had provided notes in advance as to the types of wines were were interested in and those notes appear to have been pretty much ignored; only one of the four wineries we visited had those varietals available to taste at all. If you are beyond a basis understanding of wine - I would not recommend this tour. We had to sit through instructions on how to hold a wine glass... We were particularly disappointed with Paoletti Winery. This was the only winery we have every visited that did not waive tasting fees if you purchased wine. We are experienced winery visitors and have never seen a winery not waive tasting fees with purchase. The wine was expensive and almost undrinkable. The only saving grace of our day was the company of the other folks participating in the tour.
We will not do another Platypus tour.
Одговор домаћина
Apr 2019
Thank you very much for the feedback you provided for this most tour we showed you; I am very sorry it failed to live up to the previous tour. Despite that I have written to you directly about this tour, it is appropriate that I respond in this forum as well.
I suspect that our support staff overlooked your request for Burgundian varietals on your tour. Likely, they were unaware what that is, but they should have looked it up. In a perfect world, all our staff would be as informed about wine regions as our guides are, but they really aren't called upon for expertise like that very often. Perhaps in the future, you might possibly ask the reservationist for Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs.
It is not common for guests to request particular varietals on our Join-in tours, but it does happen, and we do try our best to accommodate those requests, though on particularly busy days, such as the Saturday you were with us, we cannot always oblige.
We also try very hard to avoid showing guests any wineries they have already seen with us. Often, this can be a logistical nightmare, but we are almost always successful with that endeavor.
I apologize also that you were unhappy with the wineries we did show you.
You are possibly aware that I direct our tour guides to make their own winery selections for each of their tours. One reason for this is that I hope they will take pride in putting together really wonderful tour days for their guests, (sense of ownership) and another is that since they perform their tours almost daily, our guides have access to a lot of winery feedback from their guests and they can use this information to gravitate back to just those wineries their guests rave about most consistently. Wineries are aware of this dynamic, so they usually dig deeper for our guests.
Over the years, this has been a really successful strategy for our company, and we have pleased a great many guests this way.
Occasionally, however, one or more of the winery experiences will be less than compelling. I'm very sorry this seems to have happened on your tour day. Certainly, the vast majority of wineries we visit do indeed waive tasting fees with wine purchase, but wineries do make those policies for themselves, and when they alter those policies, they tend to do so without consulting us (we visit somewhere around 200 wineries in any given month)
I'll also follow up with your guide and offer more guidance to him about putting together his winery itineraries. And I'll share your comments about Paoletti with him and with our other tour guides, so that they may take this into account when planning their future tours.
Finally, I regret that we failed to spare you the 'Wine 101 Talk'. Admittedly, we get relatively few experienced wine tasters aboard our tour compared to a large majority who are relatively inexperienced and tend to benefit from this type of demonstration. We've found over the years that we get lots of guests on board who have anxiety about appearing unsophisticated or ignorant at the wineries.
Still, our guides are supposed to try and identify and make allowances for guests who really don't need or want some help. Sometimes we drop the ball on that.
If ever again we should be so fortunate as to host you on a wine tour, I'd suggest you take one of our private wine tours. I think we could do much better justice to your level of experience and your preferences there.
Again, as I expressed in my email to you, I hope you and your companions will accept my apology for our shortcomings on this tour. Please let me know what I may do to try and make it up to you.