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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WINERY REVIEW

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Introduction
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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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 NEWS FLASH:  Worried about brown-outs ruining your wine?  Well, Chateau 55 has added a generator so your wine will always stay coo.  Mention our name and get the first month of storage free and a 5% discount for the next 11 months storage.  To check them out  click the link below. 
Link to Chateau 55 Website
33% Discount!  Save $20 on a $59.99 Priority Wine Pass by using the link below and entering the code scwr.
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.
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New winery:  Bastian's Vineyards in Escondido, subject of my latest blog.
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  • Tastes like Marsala
  • And the beat goes on
  • We are the future
  • To taste or not to taste
  • Three years
  • Doc Ed's Excellent Adventure
  • Wine, food, and music in Ramona 
  • The Guadalupe Valley -- First Visit
  • Halloween 2021 -- Revenge of the Spirits




Chateau 55 wine storage in San Diego

3/8/2019

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If you’ve read much of the material on this website, you are probably aware by now that I have two pet peeves – serving red wines at room temperature and storing wines improperly.  Now there are a number of reasons that you should really worry about wine storage, such as:
·        The Shadow Mountain (distance) reason.  We visited a couple of wineries in Warner Springs and found some very nice wine, coming home with four bottles of Nebbiolo from Shadow Mountain (see last review) and two bottles of a very-peppery Zinfandel from Hawk Watch (soon to be reviewed).  The problem is that these two wineries are a good distance away, so when you do visit them you bring home more bottles of wine than you have room for them in your storage locker.  Hence, this
·        The Espinosa (sell out) reason.  As mentioned above, I like a very-peppery Zinfandel, and Espinosa has a great one.  Unfortunately, I am not the only one who likes their Zinfandel -- their last release sold out in just two weeks.  Two weeks!  Needless to say, it makes sense to buy lots of it when it is available, requiring extra storage.
·        The Palomar Mountain (party) reason.  Sometimes you want to buy a lot of wine in advance of a large gathering or party.  In my case, we’re holding a family reunion in San Diego this summer.  Now the family name is Trovato, and Palomar Mountain just happens to have a blend that they have named Trovato….
·        The Poppaea (aging) reason.  Most red wines get better with age.  Generally speaking, the higher the tannin level, the longer the wine needs to be aged.  I call this the Poppaea effect because Poppaea makes a red wine from the Sangrantino grape.  This grape has a very high tannin level, so it requires ten years or more of aging to get close to its prime.  In some sense, this is an out-of-sight, out-of-mind issue, namely you are not likely to open a bottle of wine that you really want to age if it is not sitting in your house.
So, what to do, what to do?  Well, you can spend a lot of money on a wine storage cabinet, some of which I show in the About section.  But there is an alternative, namely taking your wine to a commercial wine storage facility.  To this end, I have arranged a deal with Chateau 55 to give you a discount.  Chateau 55 is a state-of-art wine storage facility on Sorrento Valley Road just south of the Carmel Mountain intersection.
Link to Chateau 55 Website
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They offer both full lockers and community lockers to hold your wine.  The upstairs lockers are the smallest full lockers with 13 cubic feet of storage space, enough to hold around 8 cases of wine.  They run $19.50 per month.  The lower level lockers are larger (18 cubic feet, enough to hold 12 cases of wine) and run $36 per month.  If you rent a full locker you get a fob that allows you access to your wine on evenings and weekends.
For the community locker option, you pay between $4 and $5 per case per month, ideal if you are looking to store less than 4 to 5 cases of wine.  However, the community locker option does not come with a fob, so you can only access your wine during working hours.
What about wine shipments, you say?  I mean, wouldn’t it be nice if my wine clubs could just ship the wine directly to Chateau 55?  The answer is yes, they can.  In fact, if you leave them a key, they’ll just put your wine in your locker.
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I have an arrangement with Chateau 55 to make it a bit more appealing to try them out.  Chateau 55 will give visitors to this website a free month’s rental and a 5% discount for their first year of storage.  I like numbers, so here they are:
Without discount, ground level storage locker for one year:      $432.00
Savings from free month and 5% discount for first year:            $  55.80
Discounted first year cost for ground level storage locker:         $376.20
That’s an ~13% discount.  If you go with an upstairs storage locker, the first year total is $203.78, saving you over $30 dollars or ~13%.  In comparison, you will probably pay $1,500 or more for a wine refrigerator to hold that much wine, you will need a dedicated electrical service for the unit, and you’ll need a place to put it.  In addition to the high cost of large wine refrigerators, the electricity cost is not insignificant, especially if it puts you into a higher usage bracket.
As a final note on Chateau 55, they have some tables in their lobby and a conference room off to the side with a conference table.  Over time they plan on turning this front into a nice place to drop by, visit your wine, and maybe spend time hanging out with other wine enthusiasts.
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    Jim Treglio

    retired physicist and wine lover

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