As is becoming our tradition Mrs. Wine Guy and I celebrated Valentines in Temecula California to do some wine tasting and relax.  This was our third consecutive Valentines, our fourth trip overall. As we did last year we stayed at the Inn at Europa Village   The inn is a 10 room bed and breakfast run by Chef Dean Thomas and his wife Nicole .  The rooms are what you would expect from a B & B, the breakfasts are amazing, and the views are fantastic.  Chef Dean also prepared our amazing Valentines day dinner served in the cave room of the adjacent Europa Village Winery. You can click on a link of Chef Dean describing one of his breakfasts here , and describing his Valentine dinner here. As far as wine tasting goes our overall impression is that wines from Temecula are overpriced, they plant vines as much if not more so that couples can get married at a vineyard than to produce great wine, the white wines are better than the red wines, and that the red...

I published my 10 best a few weeks ago and I was asked what my lest favorite wines I tasted in 2016 were.  I guess the good news was there were very few wines I truly hated but 3 of them really stood out.  Just to let you know I only included wines that tried to be good not mass market wines like Barefoot, Apothic, and Menage a Trois.  In descending order of terrible: #3:  2014 Anakena Chardonnay (Chile)   Very little fruit, soapy tasting, overly acidic and a bitter finish. 72 Points. $10. #2: 2013 Petals Riesling (Germany) Cat Pee, Barn Yard and rotten fruit. If I made this wine I would get out of the business. Not good. 70 Points.  $9.   #1 2013 Pillsbury Symphony Goddess (Arizona) Ever buy a bottle of wine and say to your self "what was I thinking". This stuff has notes of rotting grass and soap suds. Unpleasant nose, unpleasant finish. Could be the w...