We have visited over 30 wineries, breweries, distillerys along the Finger Lakes and this was by far the most disappointing. The server at the meadery/cindery couldn't answer any of our questions about the products she was pouring, and the place had the feel of abandonment. We were the only ones there, and now we know why. The staff was disinterested in helping us, had zero knowledge of the products, and was definitely not engaging or fun. Made us feel like a burden. There are PLENTY of good places to go, places that want your business, and want to talk about their products. Leave this place off your list! read more

I only had two wineries earmarked for our Finger Lakes trip: Montezuma on the Cayuga Lake wine trail because I already knew I liked their mead and blueberry wine, and this meadery on the Seneca Lake wine trail because meads and fruit wines are my favorite. Right now, you come inside to ask for a tasting which they will bring to you at a covered table outside. They currently offer tastings from a few preset lists. The traditional mead was my favorite. I might even like it a smidge more than the sweet mead from Montezuma, but they are pretty closely matched in flavor. The contemporary mead has spicier flavor (not hot, just herbaceous). If you're familiar with the Niagara wine trail, the traditional is like a lighter, less heady Odin's Nectar from Black Willow Winery (which I also love, but prefer in cooler months) and the contemporary reminded me of meads I've tried at 810 Meadworks. I also tried meads blended with cranberry, strawberry or raspberry wines. They were good, but my favorite wine is Blueberry Bounty, which is 45% blueberry wine and 55% mead. It tastes 100% like Red Vines to me (except not synthetic). I bought a bottle of that, and the traditional mead. Service is great. The venue is beautiful. read more

Earle Estates Meadery - Outdoor tasting - Meaderies Near Me - Penn Yan, New York

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A meadery, cidery, and fruit winery sounds pretty complicated, and it is difficult to sift through the variety of flavors available between the three. That said, what we tasted was nice. The ciders had a pronounced apple flavor. We picked up the basic apple one without any significant added flavors. We also picked up a bottle of the raspberry wine / honey mead. Service was friendly, and the setting nice. Being early in the season, there were no crowds. read more

My absolute favorite place on Seneca. It is attached to Torrey Ridge and it is large, but it's gorgeous. They were short staffed and it was obvious. The workers were nice and polite, but you could tell they were stressed. But I appreciate their hospitality regardless of the unfortunate circumstances. I don't think there is a cider or mead here I don't like. I usually walk out with 6 to 8 bottles everytime I'm here. If you like sweet, this is the place to be. I'm never disappointed when I'm here with anything. They have indoor and outdoor seating as well. There was also a band playing. It's easy to find and I always enjoy myself. read more

Awesome mead and atmosphere. Just a little thrown off with the size of the place and lack of product. Would go back again. read more

Earle Estates Meadery - Mead Flight - Meaderies Near Me - Penn Yan, New York

The service we received from Quinn at the Earle Estates Meadery was above and beyond wonderful. The welcoming that Quinn extended to us was absolutely genuine. She was very knowledgeable about every one of their products as well as the process involved in creating them. Their mead was quite tasty, some of the best commercially produced mead i've had. A visit to this establishment in the Finger Lakes Region of NY is well worth it. read more

I love mead and when I read about a Meadery up in the Finger Lakes, I knew I had to go. it's about a 20 minute drive from Watkins Glen and located on the west side of Seneca Lake. There's also an adjoining Cider House so you can experience 2 at one location. It's was the busiest place I went to over the weekend, as there was a line for the tasting. There's an upstairs tasting area but it was not opened, as it might have helped with the line situation. They participated in deck the halls weekend so a lot of customers were coming in for a sample of food and their tasting. Instead of coming in for one tasting to share, we ended up sharing 3 tastings between two of us. Each tasting was only $3 and included 3 tastes. The Meads were all so good and the more residual sugar in them the better. My favorite was strawberry shadows because it truly tasted like drinking sweet strawberry tea. The apple enchantment tasted just like Mott's apple juice, cant even taste the alcohol. The black jewel is another favorite of mine and you could taste the black berries. Inside the tasting room/shop there is an actual bee hive! I loved this place so much I ended up leaving with two bottles. read more

Earle Estates Meadery - the front of the building - Meaderies Near Me - Penn Yan, New York

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I enjoyed this place, I've been here a few times and they've got a nice selection of different wines and mead to try. They also have the warthog brewery with hard cider! Nothing here blew me away but their regular or original mead was pretty good. The tasting counter itself and the store was very nice and the staff were very attentive and friendly. Tastings were cheap and the cost went towards a bottle of anything that you bought which was nice! A good stop and visit for those looking to try Mead for the first time or Mead lovers looking to find another to add to their collection. read more

Earle Estates Meadery - Meaderies Near Me - Penn Yan, New York

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This was the second time here with out of town guests but this visit was marred by a less than friendly pourer. Even though he said he had worked here for five years it was hard to believe. It seemed like he had just gotten out of bed... After experiencing friendly help along the lake at other wineries it was a shock to be given such a robotic presentation. The mead itself is a bit quirky and not for everyone but worth a try. We enjoyed the ciders a lot more and purchased a couple of bottles. There are so many wineries in the Finger Lakes we will be skipping this place on our next tour. read more

This is connected to Torrey Ridge Winery. Loved the different ciders here. I ended up walking out with six bottles!! You pay for a tasting but get a coupon for money off of a bottle. They also had different flavor slushies--I didn't order one, but my friends agreed that the size wasn't a value at all for the price. Glad I skipped those! read more

So good! I came here with my family to try mead for the first time and it was great! I liked the variety and enjoyed every kind I tried. It was $5/5 for a tasting which I thought was worth it. Would definitely come back read more

Not impressed The place is linked to Torrey ridge and looks like the same place. They had a small selection of meads and wine. The young man who looked to barely be 18 years of age had no idea about the wine. I asked where the grapes are grown, how long they been around and he goes I don't know. Come on really!!!! The wine and meads were below average on tasting. It wasn't worth the value for the wine tasting. I recommend keep on driving by. read more

The mead is very good and that is about the extent of the good at this Meadery...in my opinion. The staff was so blahhhhh, the tasting wines were already poured and being chilled in a fridge, and there was no description for any of the wines. No air conditioning. Would NOT go back. read more

This was my first experience with mead. It was good! Little sweet for me but that's not their fault. The original cider was really good, after the tasting it was only $10! The girl who served me was very attentive and knowledgeable. Great service. read more

Earle Estates Meadery - Meaderies Near Me - Penn Yan, New York

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Only one employee working on a Wednesday so I think the large group of pharmacists who arrived before us overwhelmed him. We waited ten minutes for the group to finish up their tasting and another twenty minutes as the one employee rang up the group's purchases. With respect to the mead and cider, Earle Estates looks legit based on the many medals and awards (but every other winery we visited along Seneca had awards and medals displayed). The ciders were good. Bf purchased a bottle (don't remember which but we were told its the most popular one). read more

Earle Estates Meadery - Tasting counter - Meaderies Near Me - Penn Yan, New York

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A group of friends and myself were doing wine tasting up and down the lake. We wanted a change of taste so we stopped at the meadry and cidery. My girl-friend had never tried a mead before and now she is in love. The girl doing our tasting was amazing. She gave us a ton of free samples of things we were interested in. As a thank you for it we bought two bottles. Gorgeous tasting room too. read more

Earle Estates Meadery - Meaderies Near Me - Penn Yan, New York

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Excited to try the mead from ordering it online! I got the Traditional Honey and Blueberry Honey Mead. Looks like on the website they have a good variety of different types of alcohol with reasonable prices. Thank you! read more

Can't speak to the quality of the mead/cider, since we walked in and stood around for 20 minutes and no one bothered to greet us. One worker walked right past us and then stood at the register staring into space without so much as a hello. My husband said this is the 3rd time he has walked out. It's wonderful that your business is booming, but a little courtesy goes a long way. We will not be returning. read more

This review is for the Earle Estates Meadery only, the building is also part of the Torrey Ridge Winery, but we didn't visit there. Though Earle Estates calls itself a Meadery, it has both meads, fruit wines, and numerous hybrids of the two. There is plenty of parking, but surprisingly little counter space for such a large parking lot. Service also seemed strained, but we were there on a weekday, where there were only 2 servers and probably about 15 visitors. Nothing about any of the wines or meads were explained to us. There is a gift shop area featuring tons of kitch with humorous wine related quotes, but nothing meadery-specific. Taste-wise, I was very disappointed. I have tried very few meads, notably the 2 made at Brotherhood Winery (one of which is the mead served at the NY State Renaissance Farie), and I was itching to try more. When I saw such an extensive list, I paid for multiple tastings to try them all. Most of the pure meads, and many of the mead blends, tasted very good at first, but left an horrible aftertaste. I can't even describe it, I have never tasted anything like it before. It was so bad, and occurred so randomly throughout the tastings (some of the blends I tasted were excellent), that I almost wonder if they had allowed some of the sample bottles to spoil somehow. I just can't picture anyone buying these wines with such a vile aftertaste. Even the pear mead, an award winner, had this flavor--so I tend to think that the bottle had been allowed to spoil. I should have said something, perhaps, but I didn't want to be rude. I was very anxious to try the Honey Mead Semi-Dry, as I had never had a semi-dry mead before, but I was again disappointed with the aftertaste. If that taste hadn't been there, it would have been excellent. However, some of the bottles I tried were amazing. The Raspberry Reflection (30 rasp wine/70 mead), The Crusin Cranberry (cranberry wine & mead), Autumn Harvest (30 pear/30 rasp/40 mead) and the Blackberry Blush (30 blackberry wine/70 mead) were all simply wonderful. I especially would recommend the cranberry as a Thanksgiving wine. It is simultaneously sweet and tart, and very refreshing. With some trepidation considering what had happened with almost all the other meads and blends I tried, I did purchase a bottle of both the Blackberry Blush and the Crusin Cranberry. Hopefully these will taste like the samples I had. All of the pure fruit wines I was able to taste (they were sold out of most) were very very good. They were less sweet than many fruit wines I have tried, and had no cloying element. I wish more of them had been available for sampling; but I was able to try the Apple Enchantment and the Peach Perfection. The only grape wines I sampled at Earle Estates (I was here for the meads, after all) were the Niagra and the Diamond. They were good as very sweet desert wines, but not my favorite in that category. All in all, if it hadn't been for that aftertaste I would have given the wines and meads 5 stars, and service 2 stars. Please note, they do offer a discount at 2 bottles, and they will refund the cost of one tasting per bottle purchased, which is nice. read more

If you're taking a wine tour of the finger lakes or just passing by, stop in here if you want to enjoy some good meal (honey wine). My personal favorites were the cranberry and meal fusion and the Strawberry Shadow (70% honey meal and 30% strawberry wine). It was an enjoyable break from the standard grape wine of the area. read more

Ahh, what a great find! We stopped into the Torrey RIdge Winery next door to try the Redneck Wines and man am I glad that we walked around back to find this gem. I personally didn't like mead that much the first time I tried it; I thought it was much too sweet. However, tastes change and I truly love the stuff now. Earle Estates Meadery is a great example of the deliciousness of mead. They have the classic mead, but they also have many fruit meads that are very, very good. They also have several hard apple ciders that were exceptional as well. This is truly a gem in the Finger Lakes and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes mead or who is willing to try something new! read more

This is my favorite place for hard cider. Their honey wines are great but a bit pricey.

Excited for a meadery... my old college roommate used to make Mead and I don't often find it elsewhere. Came with a group and with reservations we had a personal bartender and tasting area. 6 tastes for $5. You need to go in with the understanding that mead is honey. .. therefore a sweet drink. Can't compare to other wines read more

Great cider, great mead and great staff. The staff was friendly and knowledgeable of the cedar and the mead. Pricing was good and we came home with a few bottles of each. I highly recommend this place as one of your stops on the wine trail. read more

I have never been a huge fan of mead but their blackberry and cherry blended meads were fantastic! The girl helping us (short, brown-haired girl) was on the quiet side but never hesitated in answering a direct question. My problem arose when the Jabba the Hutt like woman thought it would be appropriate to snap and berate our server in front of our party. Apparently our pourer had mixed up the cherry mead and the blackberry mead and that enraged Jabba enough to tell her (in front of customers) that it wasn't that hard to pay attention to what she was doing so why couldn't she figure it out? What I couldn't figure out was how Jabba could mix up the bright red cherry mead with the dark purple blackberry mead. I think SHE's the one who should pay more attention. Our girl just shrugged it off and didn't let it affect her, but she did smile when we all told her that she was our favorite of the day and we all left a nice tip for her. Hopefully Jabba saw none of that tip money. read more

Although I truly love some of their meads, Earle Estates Meadery earns only one star for their business practices and customer service. I first visited EEM last year and my fiance and I decided to go back again this year to pick up a case of the Black Jewel to have at our upcoming wedding reception. (Mind you....we are visiting from Illinois, so this is not just a hop across town.) I had researched online first and discovered they can't ship their wines to Illinois. The price for Black Jewel, as listed on the website, was $20 per bottle. We would get a 20% discount for buying the case. However, apparently EEM decided 2 weeks ago to raise their prices and Black Jewel now sells for $22 per bottle. This change has NOT been made to their website. Even after I showed the website to the woman working the cash register, there was nothing she could, or would, do to give us the advertised price from the website. Her only solution was to offer to provide us with the owner's email so that we could contact him about this concern. Not once did the employee offer to contact him for us. However, she did state that she'd be sure to let him know about the discrepancy so the website would be fixed. This whole situation wreaked of bad business practices and poor customer service. Thankfully there are many other very comparable wineries in the area who will be more than willing to accept our business. read more

I can't say how the cider or wine was because the staff ignored us for 15 minutes before we decided to leave. They continuously walked past us and never said anything to us. The fact is it wasn't even very busy. read more

I will literally travel an hour out of my way to stop at this Meadery and pick up half a case until I can travel back again. If you are looking for DELICIOUS honey wine in amazing fruit flavors (blackberry and raspberry are my favs) you NEED to go to to Earle Estates! Plenty of parking and friendly staff! read more

I'm a fan. I love mead. I also love that they had so many variety's from dry to sweet. Great cider too.

Went during the May pairing event. Was disappointed in the amount of information shared about the wines featured. The tasting felt very rushed : ( read more

I love this place. I love mead. I'd you're not a fan of fruit wines or honey mead, this place is not for you. If you are a fan, this place has the tastiest mead and fruit wine I've ever had and I have had a lot of mead. I get to the Finger Lakes once a year and this is place is a must. My three friends and I bought 4 1/2 cases without batting an eyelash. Join the case club! It's a great value. We saved well over $100. read more

The mead here was delicious. We were the only ones there so we didn't feel rushed around like at most tastings. The staff was polite however they didn't talk much about how the process of how they make their mead was done. We also didn't get to walk around the grounds to check everything out. Again we were the only ones there so it was a very relaxed visit. In and out. The view was amazing. 70 degrees and clear. Would like to see it on a more "busy" day but no real complaints overall. read more

I had planned a wine tour for my friends and co workers, and this was the first stop on our list. I had only read reviews, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I have tried mead before and really enjoyed it, which made me really excited to visit Earle Estates. The building is beautiful and the workers were very helpful and knowledgeable about their mead, wine, and cider. We were very excited when we found out that they had just started making cider, and it had already won an award this past summer. My favorite mead/wine was called Raspberry Reflections which was a mixture of both raspberry wine and mead. The Blueberry mead was also worth trying. Overall I had a great experience. We had a group of 14 and they were very helpful getting everyone's individual choices and answering questions about what they were serving. I would definitely reccommend my friends to visit again. I am very happy that the local liquor and wine store sells their product. read more

Went to get some wine on Tuesday walked in at 4:20 the guy asked if we wanted to taste test we said yes he said you can't, walked to the window and flipped the sign to closed. We walked out and will never walk in there or buy wine again from there. We used to get a lot of wine from here when in the area. read more

I like fruity wines but I will never go back here again for one reason the person pouring our wine made it miserable and couldn't wait to leave. Plus even to sweet for me! read more

THEY JUST ACCUSED MY FRIEND OF STEALING WINE!! All because their employee didn't bother to bag our purchase! Then said it was their job to question us. When we said that was rude they asked us to leave. read more

I loved every wine I had here and bought 5 bottles to go. Fantastic hard cider, apple wine, strawberry wine, and apricot wine. I can't wait to go back! read more