Torii Mor Winery
The Torii Mor Winery is located in the hills outside of Dundee Oregon. The scenery is perfect, the wine is tasty, and the service is atrocious (translation: Torii Mor was More Terrible).
There were six of us who entered the tasting room at Torii Mor a couple weeks ago. Posted near the entrance was a sign stating that groups of 6 or more would need a reservation. We hoped it would be okay if we inquired within to see if it was okay for our group to enter the premises. I was the last member of our party to enter the tasting room foyer. (To protect the innocent, I will provide nom de plumes for all of the parties involved sans myself.)
I was at the front door of the Torii Mor tasting room when I heard Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights ask LP regarding how many people were in our group. LP said that we had 6 people in our group. Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights immediately said “5.” LP clarified and said, “no, there are 6 of us.” Again, Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights said “5,” this time with more volume as if being loud would cause LP to change her mind. I think it was on the second “5″ that I realized what was happening. You see, I am white (always want to clarify for my new readers) and everyone else in the group was a person of color (actually I believe they all are people of color, still to this very day, please continue…). It was apparent that Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights could not seem to comprehend that I would be with a group of people of color. LP reiterated once more that there were 6 of us and asked if we could stay. Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights immediately went to her policy rulebook and stated that their were 6 of us and that we needed a reservation. The 6 of us huddled up to discuss our options. Basically, should we stay or should we go now. Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights then informed us that we could stay as long as we sat outside in their garden.
DP decided to purchase an ice wine. Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights informed DP that taste portions for ice wine were half as much in quantity as regular (non-icy) wine. Unfortunately, when Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights mentioned this little tidbit of information to DP, she said in the snarkiest way possible. “We only pour half as much for the ice wine tasting portions” was what she said. Her tone insinuated that she wanted DP to know that he was getting half as much as anyone else and that he had better not complain since your damned group had grown from 5 to 6 and we did not want you here anyways. You had to be there to really get the essence of her snarkiness (translation: subtle racism).
I then went up to the counter to purchase a glass of pinot noir for myself and WA. Immediately, before pouring anything, Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights states that “you know you have to bring those glasses back to the tasting room.” I’m a little bewildered at this point in my purchase since I had not actually bought anything yet. Also, none of the other (white) customers were being given this policy information. HT mumbled something less than complimentary about Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights and I heartily agreed as we stepped outside the tasting room.
Wine was imbibed while we processed what had just happened. Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights had assumed many things about our group:
1) That people of color and white people do not go wine tasting together. It was inconceivable to her that their were 6, not 5.
2) That DP, a man of color, would not have any previous experience with wine tasting or the dynamics of portion sizes regarding ice wines.
3) That a white man traveling with a group of people of color must be (at worst) a thief who planned on stealing his wine glass or (at best) someone who did not clean up after himself.
We were very disappointed with the service at Torii Mor Winery. Mean-Tall-White-Lady-with-Follicle-Highlights was incredibly rude. I will never go back there.
Thankfully, the Lange Winery was our next stop on our wine tasting adventure. The service was sublime and the pinot noir was definitely better than the Torii Mor version.
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What’s so frustrating about these experiences is that the “tone” is so hard to capture–it’s difficult to recreate the discriminatory inflection, despite KNOWING instinctively that what happened was unjust.
Out of curiosity, did you call to place a complaint about the service?
cest.la.vie
11 Sep 07 at 10:51 pm
Unfortunately, Wendy was not feeling well after we made it to a third winery. I spent the next week taking care of her after she was diagnosed with the norovirus. I still am catching up on work and blogging so I have not yet contacted Torii Mor. “LP” was going to call them. I need to follow-up with her…
I totally agree about the difficulty of re-creating the “tone” in a blog post. After I posted this, I had a convo with Wendy about just how difficult it was to try and convey the tone of the wine server. If only I had recorded some audio…
Eric Stoller
11 Sep 07 at 10:58 pm
Hey Eric, I understand you’ve never had a dog comment on your blog before, so let me be the first. Although I’m not allowed to go to wineries, as I’m an under-age choodle, I hear that Airlie Vineyards is a really nice place to go and that the staff there would never dream of being as stinky as those folks you met. And their wine is yummy, or at least, that’s what Papi says. Anyway, I enjoy your blog.
Emma "the Choodle" Orosco
15 Sep 07 at 9:27 pm
My policy has been for a long time not to give my business to places that mistreat me–due to race or any other reason. Spending my time and money but then vowing to never return again is not enough. Nor is leaving without letting management know of my dissatisfaction.
Yvette
10 Oct 07 at 11:45 am
LP was going to write a letter (I need to check in and see if it went out…) and I have been getting a lot of traffic from Google searches for Torii Mor Winery.
Eric Stoller
14 Oct 07 at 3:42 pm
Wow… I find your blog quite interesting but completely in a diffrent non real world than the occurance we witnessed at Torii Mor on our visit and I believe it was when YOU and your group came in. Ironcially you playing the race card is the most aggravating part of your blog because I am black and was there with 3 others, one other black and 2 Indonesian. I am sure you did not have a chance to notice us since you were too busy bullying your way into a crowded tasting room with your group of 6 and NO appointment. Your sense of entitlement amazed me.We played by the rules (and so did a group of 8 that was there at the same time) by making an appointment. It had been explained to us that their cute little tasting room was so small that larger parties would find that making reservations would allow for the staff to accomodate that group and be able to talk about the wines and have good personal time to offer us. Your group barging in on us and the others would have made our experience a much lesser one and stressed that already full tasting room and its wonderful staff to beyond its abilities. I heard the gracious woman explain this to you as you repeatedly tried to justify it by saying only 5 would be tasting. And it could have been only 1 taster but all six bodies were still there maxing out space. I also heard her graciously offer you the ability, if you were not adverse to it, to taste outside in the garden. You all pow wowed about that and then chose to buy glasses instead. That clearly meant you had no desire to truley learn and taste the Torii Mor wines but just drinking in my mind. I was glad you were out there, so that we could continue our education and learning of their gorgeous wines. One by one, you and your group butt in to the area where we were tasting and one by one, the woman you disliked whom we loved helped you while trying to continue her time with us. I heard her explain the smaller pour to the dessert wine person, and I took that as a way of her trying to make sure that person understood and was not disappointed with the lesser amount. Gracious not Rude. The fact that you were a “seasoned” wine drinker was not written anywhere on you, and clearly she had no way of knowing that since you chose not to do a tasting but glass pour instead.
What is most frustrating of all is that you would have the nerve to blame all of this on the color of the skin in your group. How pathetic and sad that you could not have simply made an appointment that would have allowed you the beautiful ( we joined the club there ) time we had instead of walking past the clearly displayed rules of groups of 6 or more and thinking that you all shoud just get your way because you existed on the planet earth and had graced them with your presence. Unbelievable!
And on a side note… while we were there, we witnessed 3 other couples come in searching this so called mean woman out since she had moved from another winery to Torii Mor. Hugs exchanged and clear admiration for her was apparent.
I would challenge you all to go in again… appointment made if your group is again 6, and see how you are treated, and then get back on this blog of yours and correct yourselves. You will feel badly that you had the nerve to blog this at all.
Austine Kingsley
24 Dec 07 at 12:49 pm
Wow,
Wow, I am a liitle late to the party here. This post was back in December and I just returned from Torii Mor and had the same experince. We were a white couple with two ‘black’ friends. They told us that we could not stand at the bar because it was rserved for a larger group. They never did show up, it was empty during our vist. The mean women snatched our money, they hastily poured our glasses (spilling wine every where). Then some bad-mean-thug told us that under no circumstance were we to go outside of the tasting room. He actually said “if you do not like it get out, your not welcome here”
I will never go back and we are considering logging a formal complaint.
Austine Kingsley (Winery schill)
24 Mar 08 at 9:28 am
Thanks for commenting. I am sorry to hear that you also had a bad experience at Torii Mor Winery. The good news is that there are a lot of vineyards in Oregon that we can go to instead of Torii Mor. Perhaps the Stoller vineyard
Eric Stoller
27 Mar 08 at 7:26 pm