del Rios Winery and Restaurant

I had the pleasure of visiting Del Rios Winery in Anakie recently, and I can't say enough about the exceptional experience I had. From the moment I walked in, I was greeted with warm and friendly service that set the tone for the entire evening.

The wines were truly outstanding.del Rios offers a diverse selection of wines, and each one I tried was a testament to their commitment to quality. The flavors were exquisite, and it's evident that their winemakers are passionate about their craft.

The dinner that accompanied the wine tasting was a culinary delight. The menu was thoughtfully curated, and the dishes were not only delicious but beautifully presented. The highlight for me was the delectable paella, a true masterpiece.

And let's not forget dessert! The sweet conclusion to the meal was equally impressive. I couldn't resist indulging in the decadent desserts that perfectly complemented the wines.

The service throughout the evening was impeccable. The staff was attentive, knowledgeable, and genuinely enthusiastic about the wines and the food, adding to the overall enjoyment of the experience.

I left del Rios Winery with a newfound appreciation for their wines and a memorable dining experience. I highly recommend a visit to Del Rios Winery in Anakie for anyone seeking exceptional wines, a superb dining experience, and top-notch service. It's a true gem in the world of wineries.

Amazing place!
Amazing service!
Amazing view
But the favorite part was when we tried the wines and the food
everyone should go

Excellent quality

We have been attending this family owned winery for years. It's a beautiful restaurant & winery.
Food is great, the wine across Red & White is so good.
Esther, Gus, family & staff treat you as their family too.
Love this place, please visit well worth it.

Had a friend’s birthday lunch at the restaurant, the food was incredible and the wines were top notch. Meredith is an absolute queen, she handled our group with poise, and quite frankly, deserves a raise. Would recommend, churros are a must!

Loved driving thru and seeing all the cute sheep!
Favourite wine: the Sangiovese!
Favourite food: the paella!
Good to be back

Wonderful experience!
The atmosphere is incredible, attentive service accompanied with delicious food and extraordinary wine. This is a must visit!

Honestly some of the best customer service I've received in Australia and definitely the best in years! Yummy food and wine. Fantastic Venue

As always your wine dinners are fantastic. Our party of 6 all enjoyed the meals and the wines. Listening to Gus and his knowledge was fascinating. Thanks for an awesome night.

Amazing views, beautiful wines, excellent service and super tasty food. We are regular here's - everything from special occasions with large group bookings, through to just a nice spot for a weekend lunch. We always absolutely love it. Down to earth and friendly staff / owners always make our visits special. Thanks so much!

We held our Football and Netball Club Winter Ball (Red Wine and Steak Night) at Del Rios on Saturday night. It was such a successful night with delicious food, amazing wine and fabulous service! Working with Becky form the beginning to the event was wonderful. She helped us plan and organise the night. She was very quick to respond to our questions and guided us with our planning. A fabulous venue to host our night. Thanks to all staff for helping to make our night such a successful one!

Fantastic venue with amazing view. Delicious food and wine. Exemplary service. Would recommend

I attended a wedding here and the winery was immaculate. The food was delicious and the outlook over the hills was breathtaking.
Loved it!

From the first hello at the door, del Rios winery provides an immaculate experience. Their fine taste, and exquisite dining is matched only by their ability to make it feel like dining at home. I’d like to give a special thank you to Becky, who’s knowledge and willingness to accommodate our groups needs were genuine and sweet. Highly recommend!

Went for birthday celebration and the location, service, and cuisine exceeded expectations. The steak was absolutely superb! Hope to come back again soon

The del Rios wines are to my mind the best the region has to offer. The restaurant has the perfect menu to accompany them including angus beef and lamb farmed on the estate itself. You can taste the care that is taken with everything here. Service is attentive and genuine. But why you really need to make the trip out to Anakie is for the expansive austere views. Such a great experience.

(Part 1 due to word count)

Unfortunately I am posting a negative review after trying to deal with the many issues that occurred at my wedding privately with the venue but as it has been 6 weeks since my wedding and they don’t care enough to finalise an outcome with me after admitting full fault to the issues and waiting weeks between replies from them I feel that other potential brides should make an informed decision before booking here, or cancel their booking entirely. We had 114 guests for a cocktail style wedding.

The whole process and lead up to the wedding was difficult to say the least with a lack of communication and a wedding coordinator that was working remotely from Belgium who then left prior to my wedding so there was no wedding coordinator in attendance which was something listed within the wedding contract as well as a floor supervisor for the night.

So many of our details that were in writing and clarified on a few occasions were completely lost on our day.

My mum arrived to the venue one hour before the ceremony started to find the decorations and ceremony room had not been set up at all, she frantically started trying to get this together with my family after asking the venue what was going on and why this wasn’t set up ready to go. My mum couldn’t get it all done in time before guests started arriving so had to do the best she could. I had sent a PowerPoint presentation with a diagram of all decorations locations and the items del Rios were setting up, we had delivered all of these items on the Friday and discussed it. We set up the rest of the venue on the Friday and the ceremony room was the only decorations the venue had to place as they had a dinner service on the Friday so we couldn’t set up this room ourselves. The venue had also not been cleaned and it was very unorganised but that was just the start.

After trying to test the music and speakers repeatedly on the Friday night before the wedding to ensure a seamless day we were told the required cord wasn’t available but would all be fine and work numerous ways on the day. Of course as I was arriving my MC could not get the speakers to work and the staff inside at the time did not know how to make the venue speakers work either. There was then going to be limitations to where he could stand so the celebrant ended up having to offer her speakers for him to use to play the aisle music for myself and bridal party as nobody could get the venue speakers to work. (No Bluetooth connectivity, aux cords did not fit)

We attended del Rios for dinner and then for a wedding.

Dinner Experience
The food was nice enough, avoid the Lamb, it's very dry and our waitress agreed this is the usual feedback on this piece of meat. We ordered some entrees and drinks at 6pm whilst we waited for our other guests to arrive. At 6.30pm a staff member came over to take our orders, we explained we were still waiting on what we had ordered 30 minutes ago. Come 7pm and our drinks and entrees are finally served to us however it was not what we had ordered. The service has been terrible every single time we have been here. Staff on their phones behind the bar while guests are clearly waiting to be served. We were hoping this was just a one off experience however multiple visits to del Rios confirmed for us that service is always very poor.

Wedding
After attending a wedding here, all I can say to other brides and grooms looking for a weddings venue is del Rios is NOT the place to book. Understaffed and incompetent. What is advertised is not at all what you get.

After visiting on multiple occasions and having a poor dining experience every time, unfortunately we will not be back.
I always try to avoid the negative reviews however this review is definitely warranted.

What a beautiful experience we had at Del Ríos winery! We were staying at one of the local Airbnb’s and were recommended by our host and I’m so glad we took up the offer. The customer service was excellent - thank you Juan for picking us up and dropping us off! He gave us a wonderful tour of the vineyard as we drove in and explained the history of how it all began. The food was delicious, authentic flavours and the wine was even better! We are not big wine drinkers but Gus (the owner) took the time to walk us through all the wines and gave us a tasting. You can tell they are passionate about what they provide and their love for good food and wine:) we will definitely be back, they made a lovely anniversary dinner and we felt right at home! Definitely add this to your list of visits when you are in the area:)

Part 2 posted from groom due to word limit on first post by Zoe.

We had paid for buses to bring our guests to the wedding, we also paid additional for welcome drinks on arrival and had discussed with the venue that these would be pre poured and waiting on the bar to avoid long lines. This was not done and the line to get a drink was out the door and down the stairs, with some people not bothering as they didn’t think they’d be able to get a drink prior to the ceremony starting as the line was so long. They had one person at the bar inside and one person outside who didn’t have half of the stuff they needed to serve anyway so was pointless.

Further to this we had discussed with the venue what beers we would like served, within an hour and a half of our wedding starting the venue had run out of beers. A staff member had to drive to Lara to purchase more for the night and they were then served warm.

We also paid for the premium drinks package which included two cocktails as an option for all guests, but we have been told by guests when they asked for them they were told these were only for the bridal party and were not served them.

The staff were so overwhelmed on the night as they were completely understaffed and could not keep up with any of the bars, clearing any food that was left out, guests had to ask for oysters to be cleared as they’d been sitting in the sun finished for 2 hours, there were glasses covering the bar as they couldn’t clear them and huge lines for anyone trying to get a drink. The staff tried their absolute best and it was not their fault but they were completely understaffed which the venue has admitted.

Our dessert option Churros was additionally never served. We did not have a cake as we had included the dessert option for guests but they never came out. Apparently a mis communication with the venue and the kitchen. We were also made aware that the guests were later served ham and cheese sandwiches, we paid for the premium Spanish tapas food option, this certainly was not one of the options we paid for.

Unfortunately it was not only me that was finding it difficult to get responses or answers to questions leading up to the wedding. Two of my suppliers expressed they would not take on clients that were getting married at del Rios as they could never get in contact with them and couldn’t get answers to anything they were trying to get in order to provide quotes for decorations. On the day of the wedding vendors even expressed they couldn’t believe how un prepared the venue was and it was potentially the most unprofessional they had experienced.

Despite the venues initial response to my email accepting all responsibility for the above issues and admitting to all of the failures that had occurred on the day with lost details between wedding coordinator and the venue as well as being totally understaffed and underprepared I was offered a food and wine voucher for del Rios, which given the above issues was an insensitive gesture as we do not wish to be compensated by having dinner at their venue. We have asked to be refunded a small amount (less than 2% of total cost) for all the things that were paid for and not provided as well as items within the contract. To date after having to follow up twice we still have no reply.

We would have liked to have dealt with this privately and have been rather understanding and kind to deal with given the huge impact this had on our day but to leave an issue like this and not rectify it further just shows the lack of care and unprofessional nature of the venue. I don’t wish the above on any other bride so book very carefully. We feel a bit robbed of our day, we made the most of it because you don’t get to do it again, but all of the above could have been avoided.

Ester and her team were fantastic. We had 6 people for lunch and all of them were amazed and fell in love with with the food and service.