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...

For Mrs. Wine Guy and I Temecula is sort of the Seven Eleven of wine regions. It is overpriced, the quality is mediocre, but since iis so darn convenient (only about 6 hours from home) we keep going back.  This was our third trip to the area if you want to find out about our first two trips you can click one of the following links:   Trip1 , Trip2 . As convenient as it is for us it is only an hour or two from LA or San Diego so it is only a day trip for those folks.  Add to that the fact that most of the tasting rooms range from very nice to spectacular, there are great restaurants, the views are magnificent, and that many of the tasting rooms feature music and other entertainment, it is no wonder it is a lot of fun even if the wine is so so. This trip  we visited Ponte, Baily, Robert Renzoni, and Oak Mountain for the first time, and revisited Wiens, SC Cellars, and Europa Village.  While we were not impressed with most of the wines there were a few sta...

I had Presidents Day Monday off of my other job (the one that pays the bills) and since Valentine's day fell on the preceding Saturday my Valentine and I decide to make the 5 1/2 hour drive to spend the weekend in Temecula to do some wine tasting and enjoy the area.  We made our first visit to the area last year. This trip we wanted to visit some of the smaller places we did not get a chance to try last year.   Our overall impression of the wine was similar to what is was it was last yea r.  The wines, with some exceptions highlighted below, are for the most part drinkable but are not special and distinctive and do not justify their high prices.  The tasting rooms for most part are comfortable, interesting, some offering great views, and the tasting room staff at all the wineries we visited were friendly and helpful. Most of the larger wineries spend as much time promoting their banquet and wedding facilities as they do promoting their wine. I'm thinking hal...