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...

We just got back from our first wine tasting trip to Temecula.  The place kind of reminds me of how Disney would create a wine tasting area.  It was really cool but in a manufactured sort of way.  Most of the tasting rooms were stunning.  A lot more opulence then you would see in Paso or Santa Barbara. The reason for this the fact that one of the main economic drivers for the area is attracting people that want to have weddings in "wine country".  So it is as important for them to create the "wine country" wedding experience as it is is that as import as it is to create wine.  They have to make sure that what they offer matches the  vision that the bride and groom have when they thinking about "wine country".  Because it is so competitive if they don't have it they have to manufacture it thus all the magnificent tasting rooms.  The wedding operations are also why many of the wineries also operate restaurants. Now that we got that out of the w...