A Day of Wine in Temecula Valley

Today, Matthew and I embarked a day of wine tasting in Temecula with our good friends the Nobletts. Truth be told, this was suppose to be our activity for New Year's Day; however, all of the wineries were closed. So, we rescheduled and hit the road today at 10:00 a.m. We had an absolutely wonderful day, even if the weather showed it would be a dreary day. By the time we arrived in Temecula, the clouds had disappeared and the sun was shining. We stopped at 5 wineries and tasted and bought wine at 4 of them. Matthew and Richard even joined a wine club at one of the wineries. Thanks to Jodie, who was our designated driver, we arrived at each vineyard ready to go.

First stop on the list was Callaway Winery. We had a 2 for 1 special for the tasting and we were able to choose 5 wines each and keep a souvenir logo glass. What was great is that between the four of us we actually picked 10 different wines and shared them. If gave us an opportunity to sample some additional wines without the extra cost. Matt had insisted that we had to go to Callaway's because his former boss had begrudgingly gave us a bottle from their vineyard which we absolutely loved. So, Matthew's plan was to buy another bottle and give it to his boss, that is until we tried the Muscat. Sorry Joe maybe next time!!!

The next stop on our tour was to Baily's. A smaller winery but one with a lot of character and ultimately had the best deal of the day! 1 whole case of the Muscat for only $36, which we decided to share. Again had a 2 for 1 deal and we sampled 10 different wines.

Our third stop was Mount Palomar and unfortunately was the only winery who wouldn't let us use our coupon because they were actually expired. So instead, we enjoyed a light snack of bread, cheeses and salami. We have also definitely decided that when come down next time we will pack our own lunch to snack on in between stops.

Our fourth stop was to Faulkner Winery was again had a lot of character, if you can get passed the small wine tasting room and the server who was sick and coughing all over everything. The only think we walked out of there with was an idea of how we could make our own mulled wine!

Our fifth and final stop for the day was to an unknown winery (at least by the tour guide list) called Long Shadow Winery. I had seen a sign that advertised 2 for 1 tasting and it was literally down the road from Faulkner, so we figured it was worth a try. From our first looks and impressions, we all believed that it was a start-up winery. Boy were we wrong, they are one of the oldest wineries in Temecula and aren't part of the wine tour listing because they do not belong to the Temecula Valley Wine Growers Association. They like to do things there own way and it definitely showed during our visit. I will even say that they were by far the best winery we went to and our host was awesome on top of it! This was also the winery in which Matthew and Richard joined the wine club. Which made the host all the more generous with the samplings and honestly there wasn't a wine on the list that we didn't like.

We ended our day in Temecula with a nice lunch in Old Town Murrieta and made the decision that we will go back soon to visit the other wineries both on and off the list! There were even discussions about a Napa Valley wine tour sometime this spring! All I can say is that we had so much fun today that we can hardly wait to go back again! Hopefully in the spring when everything is blooming.