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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WINERY REVIEW

Introduction

Welcome to Southern California Winery Review! I started this website in late 2017 because I kept finding really bad wineries getting rave reviews, while some very, very good wineries were totally ignored. So, I've spent quite a bit of time visiting wineries in Southern California (over 60). Of these I've found about 40 pretty good wineries, certainly worth my taking the time to write them up. I know what you are thinking -- it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.... These are summarized in the Wineries section of this website.
Now wineries in Southern California are rapidly becoming the centers of social activities. Not just for special events (weddings and the like), but as a place to go on weekends with friends, to enjoy good wine (ok, that's pretty obvious), good food, and even good entertainment. While most wineries have some sort of wine club, no two are run the same. Some wineries have restaurants. Some have entertainment on weekends. Some even have hotels. So I have included information on all of this, both in the Wineries section and in the Winery News section.
If you are looking for specific varietals, you can find long lists at the beginning of the About section. Not just what varietals are available in Southern California, but which wineries are offering them. The About section also includes info on wine storage, corks, the Sommelier test, how to cool your wine to proper serving temperature, and other little tidbits.
Wine quality determines which wineries I review, though I also pay attention to the wine tasting room, personnel, location, view, et al. I should add that I am very much a red wine enthusiast....
And speaking of red wine, I shall now expound on my pet peeve -- namely, drinking red wine at "room temperature"! Red wine should be stored and drunk at a temperature below 65 F. If you don't believe me, I suggest you run a little experiment -- I like experiments, in fact I'm a retired experimental physicist. Pour red wine into two glasses in a warm room. Chill one to below 65 F (put it in the fridge for about 20 minutes) and let the other glass warm up. Then taste them both....
See picture below for recommended drinking temperatures. By the way, what you see in the picture is the back of a wine temperature gauge, one of many wine-related paraphenalia in the Gadgets section.
IMPORTANT NOTE: At the end of each post is a small Facebook Like box.... Would really like a lot of likes....

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Link to Chateau 55 Website

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Link to Priority Wine Pass

So Cal Winery Review has joined the American Institute of Wine & Food, San Diego Chapter. AIWF was founded in 1981 by Julia Child, Robert Mondavi, and others. Read more about it in our About section.
I got another gadget for Father's Day. See it in the GADGETS section.

The Latest Blog
New winery: Bastian's Vineyards in Escondido, subject of my latest blog.

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Oak Mountain Winery

3/21/2018

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The Cave. Long and dark (actually, pretty well lit). Deep beneath the earth (really!). Barrels of some strange liquid (wine) covered with graffiti (names of Cave Club members) line the walls. Small areas with chairs and tables. At either end dark rooms with large tables – perhaps meeting places where people commune with spirits? Or drink them? This is The Cave in Oak Mountain (Winery)… Only one way out – through a spirit-lined tunnel. Yes, lining the walls are spirits, in bottles with markings, looking like the words Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Sirah… Looks like we have to drink our way out! Well, we really don’t have to drink our way out, but, while we’re here, might as well taste some of the spirits – and maybe have lunch out on the patio.
Located just off de Portola in Temecula, Oak Mountain Winery is a unique operation whose claim to fame is – you guessed it! – a cave. The cave is their barrel room and the tasting room (reserved for wine club members on weekends). Pictures of The Cave follow.

As you taste your wines, you can enjoy a nice meal, sitting on their outdoor patio with a nice view of the surrounding hills. The Cave Café is a table-service affair sitting just outside the door to The Cave tasting room so you can enjoy your wine tastings with your meal. Oh, and they have senior special entrees at $10 each Monday through Friday. The view from a table is shown below.

The tasting room is quite large with bars on both sides and bottles along the walls. Unlike many other Temecula wineries, the tasting room has little in the way of merchandise for sale. Beyond the main room is another room with tables, presumably for those who don’t want to stand at the bar or go outside for tasting. Oh, and there are small tables stuffed in between the barrels in the barrel storage area of The Cave and rooms with large tables on either end. All of these are shown in the pictures below.

The photo below is of the red wine page of the tasting menu. They also offer sweet and white wines, each on a similar page. Wine tasting is very reasonable -- $12 per person for six tastes of any wines on the menu.
They have multiple wine club levels:
·       Bronze – two bottles every other month, one red, one white, no substitutions, at a 20% discount, 15% on all other wine purchases, 10% on other purchases, and 8 tastings per month.
·       Gold – four bottles per quarter, can choose red/white ratio. Other terms same as Bronze
·       Platinum – six bottles per quarter, can choose red/white ratio, at 30% discount. Other terms same as Bronze.
·       Cave Club – three year deal for $4,000, one case per year, and lots of other benefits, including access to the tables in the barrel room and a plaque on a wine barrel.

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Salerno Winery

3/18/2018

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Salerno is, well, an absolutely amazing winery to visit. Special thanks go out to Eleanor from Scripps Ranch /Fairbanks Estate for recommending that we visit this incredible winery.
It isn’t the good wine, or the excellent cuisine, or the live entertainment, or the great view that make it an amazing winery. No, none of those things. It is the art. Not just any art, but sculptures, lots and lots of fantastic sculptures, including one of 112 replicas of Michelangelo’s Pieta sanctioned by the Vatican (see below). The sculptures include a chess set. I’ve attached many pictures of the chess set and other sculptures at the end of this blog. Like most of the Ramona wineries, Salerno is open only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Located on highway 67 in Ramona, Salerno doesn’t have a tasting room per se. Rather, one sits outside among the sculptures in comfort (see picture below) and they bring the wine to you. They have food as well, though limited to really good pizza and a couple of other items.

Now, if you want to taste their wines, you can buy a flight of four wines (see picture below) for $15. They serve the wine chilled, by the way, meaning they pretty much know what they are doing. The tasting menu is limited, not surprising for this time of year.

Their wine club is run a bit differently than others. You buy two bottles a month or a quarter at a discount price. As you can see on the menu below, the wine club discounts are serious. You get a tasting when you stop by to pick up your wine.
Then there are the sculptures, more than 30 pieces from the Jaime Chaljon (winery proprietor) private art collection. Some pictures below. Enjoy.

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March 10th, 2018

3/10/2018

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A little help...

3/8/2018

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I’ve now visited 20 or so wineries and found a dozen worth reviewing, i.e., twelve wineries that offer some pretty good wine. Given that this is only a fraction of the wineries in Southern California (there are some 70 wineries in Temecula alone), this is going to take a lot of time. So I would like your help.
The wineries that I have decided not to review have wines that range from the “not very interesting” to “stinky” – we actually ran into wine that stunk (ah, I get the strong aroma of skunk, dog poo and urine…). I don’t review these wineries because I’m very selfish. If I do review them, the people going to these wineries might stop going to them and go to the good wineries, drinking up the good wine and leaving less for me…
It would be very nice if I could just skip ones that I know do not make good wine. It will save me time, money, and the agony of tasting bad wine. That’s where you come in. Rather than asking you to recommend wineries to visit, I’m asking you to recommend wineries not to visit. Just comment on this post with the winery name and, if you like, why you don’t like their wine. I won’t post your comments, but will add the wineries you recommend not to visit on my not to visit list.
I thank you in advance.

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Leoness Cellars

3/5/2018

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Some time ago, I can’t say exactly when, the nation’s restauranteurs decided that they really didn’t like their patrons. To help drive them away, they thought of various ways to ruin their dining experience. First they removed rugs from the floors and tapestries from the walls to make sound echo through the dining room. As that did not prove effective, they piped in loud music. Then, to both add to the noise level and destroy any semblance of ambiance, they removed the acoustic ceiling tiles. The final steps are now underway, replacing normal tables with normal chairs with high tables and high chairs to torture their clients…
So what does this have to do with wine, you may ask (other than serving red wine at room temperature)? Well, you really can’t enjoy good wine in an unpleasant environment. Fortunately, at least one winery, Leoness Cellars, has arrived at the same conclusion. Their restaurant, shown below, has an ambiance that matches their great cuisine and wine. No carpet on the floor, but otherwise pretty good design. OK, so don’t believe me about the food – hey, I’m not the one that voted them as the #1 Winery Restaurant four years running (USA Today poll)!

Located on de Portola in Temecula just down the road from Robert Renzoni, Leoness also has a great patio just outside the tasting room with a magnificent view (see below). The tasting room is a nice operation. General price of tasting is $16 weekdays, $20 weekends for six tastes. While it may seem that they built a winery to support their restaurant, they actually began as farmers, hence all of their wines are estate grown.

Their tasting menu is shown below, along with their wine price list. They have a wine club. Correction, they have four wine clubs, each with three fixed price levels. Basically, a fixed-price wine club requires that you pay a certain price per wine club period for which you get a fixed number of bottles of wine. Free wine tasting for club members is included in all of their variations.
Did I mention that they have a really good restaurant? I mean, a really good restaurant….

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WINERY REVIEW

Oak Mountain Winery

Salerno Winery

March 10th, 2018

A little help...

Leoness Cellars

Jim Treglio

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