The Winemakers Studio

This place is so much fun.
When you walk into Wente, there’s the main tasting room to your left. But if you keep walking, you’ll stumble upon this gem — the Winemakers Studio!
I came here with le fiancé around my birthday for the first time. Wente was one of our stops and we honestly got confused as to where the tasting room was and where this place was. But I’m glad we stopped in here! The guy behind the counter was amazingly friendly and helpful, he didn’t make us feel like a number and honestly talked to us and got to know us. He was also AMAZINGLY helpful at recommending other wineries based on the kinds of wines we liked — we went to Three Steves thanks to him and for that experience I am super grateful!
The white blend ended up being my favorite, we got it in a growler to go. The second time I came back, I was planning on refilling up the growler with the white blend but they only had super expensive reds left. Sad times. But I got one anyway and was happy about it.
Love Wente. Love Livermore wine country. Absolutely love how it’s only 20 minutes from my house. Will definitely be back to refill my growler :)

I enjoyed about half of their wines made to date. Either they really nailed it or really missed it. The Artisan Red, Azul Verde and Lot 001 were all excellent. I signed up as a wine club member and found it to be very disorganized. Two events in one year and one release. They have two levels, 6 bottle and 12 bottle. I signed up for 6 bottle level, had the manager confirm me as a 12 bottle with 6 bottle price, showed up and selected my 12 bottles, then told by employee that I was a 6 bottle member and needed to pay difference. I explained all that had transpired, with email proof and was given some discount and ultimately paid a price difference.
When the employees that work there are telling you the concept is being poorly executed and that they’ll give you your money back if you’re unhappy, that’s a sign that a fix was needed. My experience was for most of 2014. Perhaps 2015 means they’ll get the delivery correct. Again, the wines are good if you get the one that’s for you. But that’s wine tasting/​enjoyment. We each have our own tastes. My concern is for the lack of organization in the management there. The worker bee employees at Wente are flawless as usual.

Wine is so good but manager of that place is so bad! Can you please make some change, the question directed to management team! Don’t you see that she is not nice to customers nor responsive to customer needs? I just wonder and I am surprised! I am not coming back until she is gone! If you would like to contact me privately, please do so!!! You have a brilliant team of your employees but just wonder how you have such bad manager who doesn’t have any customer service skills! Something is wrong here! Uh!

Long overdue review of Brandon at Winemakers studio! He’s been kind, generous, helpful and overall accommodating every single time we’ve seen him at many of Wente’s tasting rooms. He led our blending class a few weeks ago and provided not only education but expertise. He is truly passionate about wine and educating others. Thank you Brandon, you are a true professional, your efforts do not go unnoticed!

Great tasting experience! We had a brief window of time to try and hit a few vineyards in the Livermore area after some meetings in Fremont. The Winemaker’s Studio was meant to be a quick stop along the way, but the personable customer service, wine, and overall experience was where we ended our day. We sampled wines on the tasting list, off the list, and were even treated to custom blends based upon our conversations. Thank you Brandon, we had a great time!

Very cool experience! They give you seven wines to blend. You taste them by themselves, get some education about the grapes and growing conditions, and then get to work coming up with your perfect blend. You can do multiple blends… so you can try a few different things, find one you like and then try a few additional blends to tweak it and see if you can improve it. Then they take that blend and make a bottle of it for you.
It’s possible to drink a fair amount of wine while you’re doing this, so you need to be careful to not get to the point where you can’t taste/​smell anything.
The wines were all quite good. I wouldn’t say they were amazing but if they came out of a $ 20−30+ bottle of wine I’d be very happy with them. And you get to blend them to potentially make an amazing wine. ;-)
Kevin was a great host as well.
Some minor complaints:
Spending the first 10 – 15 minutes talking about the history of Wente was unnecessary. Not a big deal, but I doubt most people care to know that much.
For those of us that don’t sniff wine on a regular basis, it’s really difficult to determine how to describe what you smell. A short 20 minute version of their Aroma class would add a lot to the experience and help you wrap your head around at least some of the scents.
$ 125 is a little pricey. The club price of $ 95 seems more reasonable. However, you can go through a LOT of wine making the blends, so I guess that needs to be considered.
Overall a great experience. It was just myself and my GF, which was fun. I can see this really being a blast with a group of 4 – 6. Plus the added benefit of having to get together a couple months later after the wine has blended in the bottle a bit to try out everyone’s different blends.

This place is for people who want to get soused on cheap wine. The tasting room is built around a different concept than most. You siddle up to a bar where an employee pours wine from a tap, like beer. (They move their wine from wooden keg to metal keg, then pressurize it with gas.) I thought the wines all tasted flat. Like the kind I’d only buy at $ 8 a bottle or less in the grocery store. What they lack in quality they make up for with quantity. The pours here are very generous, 4−5oz. per glass. Years ago that would have been considered a standard restaurant serving! The bartender– I mean, wine tasting coordinator– suggested two people split a tasting. If you’re okay sharing spit with your friends, that’s fine. If not… well, please don’t drive home.

Nice tasting room experience. You can learn a lot about the smells of wines and there is a whole interactive experience. Very high tech for a tasting room!

Great new addition to the Livermore valley, with plenty of geeky toys and information to play around. The staff is knowledgable as expected from Wente, and the wines squeaky clean (but not saturated with sulfites) from the barrel and at a good temperature. Most other wineries wouldn’t have the tools or the support to pull this off. Bravo
The choices are a little limited (3 cabs, 1 Malbec?, 1 petite?) and the price tag is a little high, but the place has potential, and it’s already infinitely better than the tamas wines from before.
A yearly amateur wine blending competition, judged by the Wente experts would be a lot fun and would bring all winos out there.

Beautiful location! We visited on opening weekend and the wine was wonderful! Kevin was great and the $ 10 tasting was well worth it.
You can also do blending classes and food pairing classes here, but I’m not sure about costs (several free passes for members).