garvin heights vineyard

Lovely vineyard featuring a truly unique and surprising Choco Peche wine. The owner was nice and taught us about cold weather grapes.

The Marquette Wine is palatable and by far the best they offer. The view from the deck is lovely and a perfect place to sip a glass of wine and enjoy the day. The staff was friendly, but did not necessarily exude a passion for discussing the merits of the wines chosen for tasting

Garvin Heights Vineyard is located in a beautiful rural area with a scenic drive above Winona. The owner/server for our tasting was very accommodating. We thought the some of the wine selection was good, but the tasting portions seemed less than half of a normal 1 oz. portion. This made it difficult to arrive at a fair conclusion about each wine. We bought one bottle to share on the deck, but we likely would have purchased 2 or 3 to take home if we had received a better tasting, as we usually do at other wineries. We were slightly bothered by the gal who served us as she kept saying "I sell _______" as she showed us her wares in the tasting room. It seemed rather pushy and turned us off on ANY purchase.I think this could provide an excellent winery experience if the ownership gave some attention to the details mentioned above.

Nice little winery with a great view from their deck... I did the port tasting ($3 for 3, and a glass to keep) and was pleasantly surprised. Be sure to try the chocolate-peach wine - it tastes much better than it sounds! Staff was friendly, and told us about the wines and the Winona area in general. Definitely worth checking out.

We stopped for an afternoon of wine with a half dozen friends. The view of the valley from the deck is wonderful. And can there be a better way to pend an afternoon than enjoying a sweet wine and some chocolate and cheese? I don't think so

We stopped in on a touring day, and the setting is very nice. Nestled high up in a very rural area, the day was beautiful.At first look, the building was small, but the staff made up for it. We only did a tasting and shopped the fun merchandise. Again, these are Minnesota cold grape vintages--which the staff was careful to mention. You won't get the typical California wine taste.As such the reds were more to our taste. We like drier wines, and they had two I liked. The bottles were reasonably priced, and they deducted the tasting price (only $5) when you bought a bottle.Again, they were so helpful, and gave us directions to continue down to the Mississippi, and also some information on the Minnesota-Wisconsin wine trail.The views from the outdoor patio are very nice, and it's a relaxing place to sit and wine.A nice stop, decent wine, and a lot of local flavor.

This winery is about average from the others I have been too, but it is not bad for being a smaller winery. We tried the wine tasting and also the additional port tasting and the wines were great. I enjoyed the raspberry wine and mixed with the port was even better. The small tasting area was busy but we were still given good service, even though it felt a little rushed. The wine tasting is $5 which is refunded if you buy a bottle of wine, and the port tasting is $3 and you get to keep the glass. The drive to the top of the bluff where the winery is located is worth it too.

Service was good. Wine was average for Minnesota wines. We bought a couple of bottles of two wines we tasted and liked. The red we bought must have been from a different year than what we tasted or something happened in the wine making process because it was nothing like what we tasted at the vineyard. It tasted of vinegar and was not even drinkable.

We really lived the location but only found one wine that e liked. Our host was very friendly and suggested several places for dinner. We were refunded one of our $5.00 tasting fees because we bought one bottle. The place was nice but we were disappointed.

My wife and I stop by whenever we are in Winona with some time to kill. We typically split a bottle of wine on the deck behind the tasting room. It's a nice view, very relaxed atmosphere, and the owners are very friendly and helpful. The wine itself it comparable to other local wines we've tried in the area.

As far as vineyards go, I was a bit let down. They have an OK tasting room, offer 5 wines for $5 and have a small vineyard on the grounds. My host for the tasting was great, offered up tons of history on Winona and the area, but I just didn't like the wines and found the reds having a bit of a Robitussin taste. It's not to far from the Garvin Heights Bluff overlook, but just struck me as more of a Home brew set up than any real production facility which may appeal to some.

I stopped at Garvin Heights on a leg of my wine tasting bachelorette party with a group of 15 women. Overall, I was not especially impressed with the wine. The wines were incredibly aromatic, but were not too pleasing to the palate. I, as well as other members of my group, felt that the wine tasting pours were rather stingy when compared with the other wineries we stopped at that day. It also felt as though the people doing the tasting were more concerned with making sure no one got an extra pour of wine than whether or not we were actually enjoying what we were drinking. The staff harped at my group about paying for their wine tasting with $20 bills (sorry, but that's all that comes out of the ATM)! I do not imagine I will ever return to Garvin Heights.

We went here the day after a wedding on our way home. The owner was very friendly and the building was very nice. The sampling cost $3 for 4 (tiny) samples. The fee was waived if you bought any wine. I wasn't impressed with the wine but we bought a bottle to try at home. I think it's great that small vineyards are popping up around the western WI and eastern MN border.

Firstly, I'll echo everyone else that has said: don't trust your GPS to find the vineyard by address. Plug in the coordinates, however, and you'll be taken right to their front door. This is a typical, small family-run vineyard, though they do make three ports, which is something you don't often see (however, ports are becoming more prominent). One of the owners, Mr. Seppanen, greeted us on our visit, and we got started on tasting right away. We opted to taste the ports (my husband) and four other varieties of their wines (me). We ended up buying two bottles of the red port and five other bottles of wine. The other patrons were happy and good-natured (who can be crabby when tasting/buying wine?); Mr. Seppanen was friendly and informative. There is a good variety of wines to taste and purchase, a little something for everyone.

As other people have said ... don't trust the GPS. However, if you visit their website, you are warned in advance and given very good directions. We were there at 10:00 in the morning and the gentleman that greeted us was extremely friendly and informative. We enjoyed the tastings and the visit. Personal preference was the Brianna wine - very good. I believe tastings were $3, but refunded with the purchase of a bottle of wine. Nice selection of gift items. Nice view. To hot to sit outside when we were there, even at 10:00 a.m. Would recommend a visit, nice little winery.