So. Cal. Winery Review
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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 about two years ago 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.
I am not really qualified to review the wines themselves, though I will tell you what I like and maybe even what I don't like.  However, I have a wine collector (now a Level 1 Sommelier) who will provide us some insights into particular wines.  One word of warning:  both he and I are red wine enthusiasts....   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.
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Red wine should be aerated, i.e., allowed to breath.  You can buy a simple aerator that will do the job, twirl the wine in the glass, or just let the wine sit for  awhile before drinking.  Of course, if the room is warm, see above....
One question you may be asking yourself:  why should I buy wine from a winery rather than Cosco, a supermarket, or a wine shop?  Well, for one thing, if you visit the winery you taste the wine before you buy it.  Then there is the fact that Cosco and the supermarkets don't store the wine properly, so even if you get a good wine the first time the next bottle you buy might not be as good.  That assumes they still carry it and you can remember what it was you bought in the first place.
But there is another reason -- wineries in Southern California make varietals that you are unlikely to find at Costco or a supermarket.  I list  a whole batch of white and red varietals I've tasted at the wineries I've reviewed.  Costco only carries around 15 red varietals.  You won't find two of my favorite wines:  LaGrein and Montipulciano.  To make it easier to find a winery offering your favorite varietal, the wine varietal wine lists are now in both the About section and the Wineries section (just above the pictures of the bottles).
Note that in the Wineries section, I show bottles from many of the wineries.  The background is the same -- the bottle sits on a white tablecloth with a flower pattern in front of a potted plant, i.e., on my dining room table.  Need I say more?
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NEWS FLASH:  Chateau 55 still has room to store your wine, but they are filling up.  You get the first month of storage free and a 5% discount for the next 11 months storage just by mentioning our name.  To check them out  go to www.Chateau55.com (link below). 
Link to Chateau 55 Website
The Priority Wine Pass discount is still in play.  Just click on the link below and use the code scwr to get $20 off the annual pass price.
Link to Priority Wine Pass
Latest Blog
I made my first visit to an urban winery, Koi Zen Cellars.  It is the subject of my lastest post.
Site News
  •  With reviews now coming in from Doc Ed on Oregon wineries, I've added a listing of reviewed Oregon wineries in the Wineries section, after the extensive So Cal winery listing.
  • Don Bartick, who has been Wine Competition Chairman for the Lum Eisensan/San Diego Wine Competition, has written some insights in the judging that makes this competition different from others.  Find it on the About page.
  • New entry from Doc Ed.  He's done some experiments on speed of cooling a bottle of wine.  See it in the About section, just below his entry on the Sommelier test.
  • In the "Wineries" section, beneath the table of wineries, I've added a discussion on wine prices.  Check it out!
  • I've added a little review of the winery ordinances and what it means for a winery in San Diego to be classified as boutique.  Find it in the "About" section.
  • I've decided to treat white wines with a bit of respect.  To this end, I've done for the whites in the "About" section the same as for the reds, listing the different varietals and the wineries that make them.  I've put it after the reds...
  • We carried two bottles of Stag's Leap Artemis Cabernet Sauvignon back with us in our suitcases in wine travel packs.  See these in the "Gadgets" section with the other wine devices.
  • I list quite a few red wine varietals at the beginning of the "About" section.  I have now added to each varietal some of the local wineries I've reviewed that offer that varietal.
  • My wine expert, Doc Ed, has  passed the Level 1 Sommelier test.  You can read about it in the About section.
  • I've added another wine storage cooler to the "About"section.
  • ​​I have added a bit on balsamic vinegar in the "About" section, including how to make a great dressing for salad or Caprese.  I had a lot of Caprese on my recent trip to Italy, and frankly think mine is better....
  • I have run a little experiment with ice in wine to cool it down.  See the results in the "About" section.
About Section Contents
The about section is getting a bit crowded, so I thought it might be worthwhile to list the contents, as follows:
  1. About Red Wines
  2. About White Wines
  3. About Sommeliers
  4. About Chilling Wine
  5. About Southern California Wineries
  6. About the Lum Eisensan/San Diego Wine Competition
  7. About Corks
  8. About Wine Clubs
  9. About Wine Storage
  10. About Balsamic Vinegar

Vitagliano Vineyard & Winery

4/25/2019

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Sometimes things just work out.  I usually spend a bit of time before going off to wineries reviewing websites, picking out ones that I think would be of interest.  Yesterday, we drove up to Temecula with plans to visit a specific winery based on what I’d seen on their website.  While that turned out to be a complete waste of time – absolutely terrible wine and winery – along the way we passed a winery that had not come up in any of my searches but looked very interesting – from the road.  So we stopped in and quickly found ourselves in one of the most beautiful wineries in Temecula:  Vitagliano Vineyard & Winery.
​Vitagliano is a new winery (the facility opened 2 ½ years ago), located on de Portola not far from where it intersects Rancho California.  Unlike most wineries, the tasting room is small relative to the facility, i.e., it is not designed for you to stand around a bar.  It is the building shown on the other side of the artificial lake shown in the picture below.  I have attached more pictures of the facility at the end of this blog.
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We sat outside on very comfortable couches under the trellises (see below).  It was hot yesterday, so they turned on the misters for us.  I should add that while it was a very warm day, the tasting room was cool and hence we were tasting the wine at close to proper temperature.  Wine tasting was $18 per person for six tastes off of the menus shown below.  We particularly liked the Mouvedre and the Syrah.  Water was available, but no munchies.
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Their wine club requires you to purchase 3 bottles per quarter at a 20% discount which extends to anything you buy from them, 25% off of cases, 8 free tastings per month, and two Vitagliano etched “Stolze crystal” logo glasses.  The winemaker picks the quarterly offerings.
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Woodworth Vineyards

4/8/2019

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The weather yesterday was perfect for wine tasting.  In anticipation of the weather, we decided to check out Woodworth Vineyards, a winery that offers tasting by appointment only.  We have been interested in them for some time, as they are one of the few wineries in Southern California to produce a high-quality Pinot Noir from grapes grown in our part of the world.  More on this below.
We opted to go with their wine tasting plus lunch.  The day turned out to be one of those good news/bad news thingies.  The good news:  the tasting and lunch was held at their beautiful house in the De Luz hills west of Temecula, as shown in the pictures below.  We had a truly great time.  You know you’re in the right place at the right time when it’s just you and the owners, and they join you in the tasting.
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Now for the bad news:   they sold their vineyard!  To make matters worse, while they will continue making wine, all they have left of their Pinot Noir is the 2015 vintage (which we snared six bottles of, so you can’t drink it all up on us!).
A little history.  Back about twenty years ago, Marlene and Gary Woodworth purchased a large property in the De Luz hills west of Temecula.  They planted avocados, flowers, and grape vines.  Somewhere along the way, as they learned how to make wine, they realized that the De Luz hills had the same micro-climate as the hills in Santa Barbara County, i.e., perfect for Pinot Noir, so they changed some of their vines to Pinot Noir.  Their first vintage was 2008, and they entered it in a big Pinot Noir tasting in San Francisco --along with ~500 other wines.  Lo and behold, their wine made it to the gold level (top fifty), so they headed up the coast for the finals, feeling pretty good about the fact that their very first offering had made the top 10%.  Well, that pretty good feeling turned into pure ecstasy when their wine placed third in the final competition.  Every year since then they’ve scored in the top 50 )though they haven’t broken into the top three since that first vintage).
Wanting to do things the hard way, they decided to make a brut sparkling wine from their Chardonnay grapes – using the Method Champenoise.  This is a very difficult undertaking.  You begin with normal barrel fermentation, but then bottle the wine and finish the fermentation in the bottle.  In the fermentation process, yeast converts the sugar in the juice to ethanol (ethyl alcohol) and carbon dioxide.  So, if you ferment the wine in a sealed bottle the carbon dioxide has nowhere to go but into the wine.  When all of the sugar has been converted to alcohol, the yeast dies.  The trick is to remove the dead yeast without releasing the carbon dioxide.  First you have to hold the bottles upside down and move them about until the dead yeast settles on the cork.  Then you have to freeze the yeast to hold it in place when you turn the bottle right-side up and pop the cork.  The pressure in the bottle blows the frozen yeast out of the bottle.  The winemaker must then replace the wine that goes out with the yeast and recork the bottle without losing pressure.
Their first time through the Woodworth’s had some success with the process.  Not so the second time... The pressure in the bottle can reach around 100 psi, so special bottles have to be used.  Unfortunately, they purchased fancy Italian bottles that did not hold up, so they lost an entire vintage.  Third time through they found an old Frenchman whose business is removing the dead yeast from sparkling wine bottles.  This was the wine they began the tasting with, followed by their Pinot Noir rose, Golden Maggie.  From there we went to the red wines, their 2015 Pinot Noir and two of their blends (Wild Bandit and Black Dog).
The full list of their wines is shown below.  It includes another wine that gave them fits in making, namely their Herc’s Field Blend.  Field blending, common in France, is a technique whereby you grow and ferment the grapes for the blend together, rather than blending after fermentation and barrel aging.  A bit of a crapshoot, first because you don’t know if you’ll get the same yield from year to year of the different varieties and second because they don’t ripen at the same rate.
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Wine tasting with lunch is $30 per person; with just cheese its $20.  The lunch is also shown below – a very delicious salad, three gourmet cheeses, a bit of meat, and in the small bowl chocolates and date candies.  I should add that two of the cheeses were so good that we stopped in the Temecula Cheese Shop on the way home to buy some.  Did I mention that the three red wines we tasted were on the table, should we have been interested in re-tasting.
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They have three wine clubs:  mixed, all red, and Elect.  Mixed is $75 for two bottles of white wine and two bottles of red wine three times a year.  All red is four bottles of red wine three times a year for $90.  If you are interested in buying two cases a year of their wine you can go with the Elect Club.  You choose the wine and get it at a 30% discount.  You can taste and purchase their wines at Crush and Brew in downtown Temecula.
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Frangipani Estate Winery

3/30/2019

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I really don’t like to do my wine tasting standing at a bar, and really, really wonder why so many people make it a point to do so when they can readily find a nice place to sit and enjoy the wine in their glass.  So, I am happy to introduce you to Frangipani Estate Winery in Temecula.  Located on the dePortola wine trail next door to Cougar, you do not stand at the bar for your wine tasting.  You sit at a table inside or outside and in the Ramona boutique winery manner they bring the wine to you.  As you can see in the pictures that follow, it is a great place to sit outside and sip a nice glass of wine.
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The wine tasting room is rather large, but, as you can see the pictures that follow, does not have any real bar.  In other words, even if you wanted to stand at the bar and taste their wines you couldn’t do it.  Me like.
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Below is the tasting menu.  Tasting is $15 for six wines.  We tried six of their reds, and, well, sometimes you just have to eat crow.  The server talked me into tasting their Merlot.  It’s not that I dislike Merlot – I mean, it isn’t Tempranillo – but it is always somewhat uninteresting.  OK, very uninteresting.  But this Merlot was not uninteresting.  How much so?  Well, we went home with a bottle….  Also left with bottles of their Petit Sirah and Syrah.  In other words, this is a winery worth visiting but with an understanding that you may find it very difficult to leave empty-handed....
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They have two levels of wine club.  The lowest level requires you to purchase three bottles of wine per quarter, selected by the winemaker at a 15% discount.  You get free tasting for four twice a month.  The high level requires four bottles per quarter, but you can choose all red or mixed.  All red gets you two bottles each of the wines selected by the winemaker.  If you go with mixed, you get one bottle of each of the reds for that quarter plus two bottles of the white wine.  Discount is 20%, and you get four tastings four times per month.
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Family Winemakers of California

3/20/2019

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Rather than visiting a crowded Irish pub and getting smashed on green beer, this St. Patrick’s Day we went to the Del Mar Fairgrounds to a crowded wine tasting event (see picture below), getting smashed on wine.  The wine tasting event was put on by the Family Winemakers of California and entailed some 60 wineries from all over California.  It is worth noting that this included only one winery from Temecula and one from San Diego county, the latter an urban winery at that.
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Once inside, tasting was free and they had some free food as well – bread and cheese as well as some munchies at the booths.  Let me add that our Priority Wine Pass got us 10% discount off of the normal $60 entrance fee.  Anyway, we made sure that we got our money’s worth, but try as hard as we could we only managed to visit about half the booths in the three hours of the show.  Needless to say, we depended on Uber to get us to and from the Fairgrounds.
So, you ask, how were the wines, or, more specifically, how did they compare to wines made in our part of the state?  For starters only about a third of the wineries whose tables we visited offered wines that I would consider good enough to write a review about.  In comparison, I’ve reviewed about two-thirds of the wineries I’ve visited in Southern California.  In terms of specific wine varietals (keeping in mind that we focused almost exclusively on red wines), only one was significantly better than we’ve found in Southern California, namely Pinot Noir.  This was not a surprise – for the most part, we don’t have the climate for that particular grape, though I have had a pretty good Pinot made from grapes grown in Fallbrook.  I’ve made a little table comparing different wine varietals from the show versus my visits to wineries I’ve reviewed in Southern California.  It shows that the Southern California wineries are competitive with the rest of the state, and superior for some wine varietals.  Note, however, that we did not see any Nebbiolo, Montepulciano, Refosco, Lagrein, Nero D'Avola, Aglianico, Aleatico or Negroamaro at the show.
Wine Varietal
So Cal vs Family Winemakers
Pinot Noir
Family Winemakers -- by a lot
Cabernet Sauvignon
not enough samples
Cabernet Franc
About equal
Zinfandel
Southern California
Sangiovese
Southern California -- much better
Barbera
Family Winemakers
Syrah
Southern California
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Hawk Watch Winery

3/14/2019

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As I mentioned in my last blog, after leaving Shadow Mountain we drove north along 79 to a second winery, Hawk Watch Winery.  It is located on a side street that we missed and had to drive some distance before we found a place to turn around.  Located at the end of a dirt driveway (which they are not allowed to pave for some strange reason), we arrived at the winery.  Worth the trip!
This Warner Springs winery has a small tasting area in their barrel room with just a couple of high chairs, but there is seating outside with a great view of the surrounding area (see pictures below).  Like most of the county’s boutique wineries, this is a mom-and-pop operation.
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The tasting room is only open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  They follow a typical wine tasting concept -- $12 per person – and the array of wines is quite nice (see menu below).  We liked the 2014 Syrah better than the Reserve Syrah, something I’ve noticed before at other wineries.  Overall good wine with one exception – their Tinderbox.  It is not a good wine, it is a very good wine.  Made from 100% Zinfandel grapes grown in Temecula, it is smooth and has a high pepper aroma and taste that I really, really like.  We left with a couple of bottles.  Did I mention I really like this wine?
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An interesting aspect of this Zinfandel is that the same grapes are sold to a Temecula winery but their wine is not very peppery.  This is a good example of what makes wines so interesting.  Two different wine makers, same grapes, two different wines…
One of the great things about boutique wineries in San Diego County is that they are always willing to try new things.  For example, few wineries outside the Piedmont area of Italy mess with Nebbiolo, but we’ve got Nebbiolo at Shadow Mountain and Principe di Tricasse.  Hawk Watch falls into the makers of rare varietal wines camp as well – or at least will fall into the camp – as they have grafted Tanat to some of their vines.  This is a grape with a very high tannin level and produces a dark red wine that really needs to be aged.  Might be awhile then before they have it available – I believe they only just got their first fruit – but they may be the only place you can find this rare wine.
They have a very generous wine club arrangement.  It is three bottles every quarter (selected by the winemaker) at a 25% discount (30% for a case) and three free tastings every visit to the winery.  Live music and appetizers at free quarterly wine club parties (weather permitting, i.e., no party in February).  Oh, and 15% off of items that they sell at the winery.  So now I have two reasons to take the long trip to Warner Springs…
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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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Shadow Mountain Vineyards & Winery

3/4/2019

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If you are looking for wineries off the beaten path, so to speak, there are plenty in San Diego County.  In the past we found a very nice winery heading southeast towards the Mexican border in the Jamul area.  If you go north and then east of Mount Palomar to the Warner Springs area you’ll find another group of wineries.  Among these, right off of Rt. 79, is Shadow Mountain Vineyards & Winery.  We drove up there through Ramona, taking 67 to 78 to 79.  Unless you have a sports car and like to drive along winding roads, I would suggest you take 15 north to 79 then east on 79 to the winery.  We took that route back – a bit longer but a much easier drive.
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If you get past the long trip out to the winery, and the mile or so dirt drive, you will find it is well worth the visit.  Shadow Mountain is a large boutique winery (30 acres) offering only Estate wines, growing 16 different grape varieties, some from vines that were planted over 50 years ago.  Their facility is relatively rustic, with nice views and a nice area outside to sit (see pictures).
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The tasting room is nothing to write home about – small with little seating – so you shouldn’t go on a day like we did, when it was too cold to sit outside.  Tasting fee is $10 per person for six tastes.  They didn’t work off of a tasting menu per se, but I have attached a picture of their price list.  You will see that they make a Nebbiolo varietal.  More about that later.  Their other wines were quite good, except for their Tempranillo but never take my word for Tempranillo since I really, really don’t like Tempranillo.  My only complaint is that the temperature in the tasting room was a bit high, and they served the red wine at room temperature.
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Now the Nebbiolo grape is used to make Barolo, generally regarded as the King of Italian wines (and the wine of Kings).  They are very proud of their Nebbiolo, so we were able to talk them into tasting some.  All I need to say is that we walked away with four bottles, two of their 2013 crop and two 2016 vintage that had just been bottled.  Yes, the wine is that good!  How good?  See the medals in the picture below.  By the way, they do their own artwork for their bottles.
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The winery also has cottages to rent and a wine club.  Wine club members purchase three bottles a quarter, but, unlike other wineries, the customer gets to pick the wines!  Discount is 20% and extends to the cottage rental as well – a very nice deal indeed.  They also hold an annual event for wine club members only.  Now if they could just move a bit closer….
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Turtle Rock Ridge Vineyard Winery

2/22/2019

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Turtle Rock Ridge Vineyard Winery is probably the worst kept secret in Ramona.  It has been voted best wine and tasting room in Ramona numerous times.  So, you are probably asking why it has taken me so long to get around to visiting them.  Well, truth be told, I just blew it….
You can get there by driving along route 67 through Ramona, then taking a right turn on Third Street.  There are plenty of signs when you get close.  Like most Ramona wineries, they are open only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
The facility is one of the better ones in Ramona.  Plenty of seating outside as well as in an enclosed patio (see pictures below).  They have a great location, with rather nice views in all directions.  And of course turtle rocks...
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The tasting room is small (see pictures below), but it really need not be very big with the two patios.  We sat at a table for the tasting rather than standing at a bar in the Temecula fashion.  We knew as soon as we entered the building that this was a popular spot – a lot of people in the winery for a cold winter’s day.
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Tasting is $12 per person for six tastes, though you can also do three tastes for $6.  Tasting menus are shown below.  We tasted the red wines, all of which were pretty good.  Love the names… 
​​In addition to tasting their red wines, we tasted their “Chocolate Turtle” dessert wine.  I usually do not like dessert wines, and was pretty skeptical about the chocolate infusion, but it is a really nice wine.
As you can read on the menu, they do serve some food – namely a cheese ball with crackers for $12.96 (really good!), and one with meat added for $20 (can’t comment on the meat -- we only tried the cheese ball).  You can bring your own food and picnic on their grounds.
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They have a wine club, but I’m going to have to confess that I didn’t get the details while I was there – I assumed they were on their web page.  Which they are not.  Wine club members do get a 20% discount and can also arrange to use their upper patio, shown in the picture below.  I’ve also included a few pictures of their turtle rocks.
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Valentine's Day 2019

2/16/2019

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My wife and I decided to spend Valentine’s Day at a winery, so we made reservations to stay at the Inn at Ponte Vineyard.  I was unable to make dinner reservations at their restaurant, so we opted to try South Coast Winery’s Vineyard Rose restaurant.  It was incredible.
First off, there was the noise – or lack of.  As you can see in the picture below, carpeted floors, sound-absorbing cloths on the ceiling, and individual booths dampen the sounds so much that you really do not hear anyone speaking at nearby tables.
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Then, there was the music – two guitarists at first, with a violinist joining them later.  Without the din of loud talking we could really enjoy the music.
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Of course, the dinner wouldn’t be particularly special if the food was just so-so.  It was not just so-so.  It was not good.  It was not great.  It was spectacular!!!  The first course was a crab salad, so good that my wife, who really does not like crab, enjoyed it.  Second course was even better, lamb over some kind of ravioli.  We had options for the third course – either filet or scallops.  My wife opted for the filet and I went with the scallops.  Both were incredible.  The presentation on all of the courses was incredible, as seen in the final dish, a lemon tart, shown below.
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Of course, we had local wine with the meal.  Now South Coast is the sister winery of Carter Estate, ergo wines from both wineries were available.  Having just visited Carter’s we knew what we wanted, their 2013 Sangiovese. Served at the perfect temperature, it was a perfect wine for the meal.  As a side note, for some reason our server thought that the Sangiovese is a Spanish grape.  We were quick to point out that it is an Italian grape.  Where are the sommeliers when you need them?
This was not an inexpensive dinner -- the food alone ran $100 per person – but for a once-a-year experience well worth the money
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Longshadow Ranch Winery and Vineyards

2/8/2019

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Longshadow Ranch Winery and Vineyards is located in Temecula, one of the wineries on a side road off of Rancho California.  Now it is my understanding that ranches have horses.  Well, as seen in the picture below, they have horses – and a very nice winery and some very nice wine.  A very pleasant place to visit.
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The wine tasting room is quite large, with plenty of open space.  I would have liked some tables, but there is good seating outside so for most of the year it is not a big issue.  As expected, the interior décor is quite ranch-like, and not cluttered with items for sale.  The picture of the horse above is taken from the outside tasting area.  There is a second area across from the main building – see below.  They have music on weekends, and some very nice special events, including bonfires on Saturdays starting in April, carriage rides through the vineyards, and on Sundays they make Sangria from their Gunslinger Red Wine
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As you can see from their tasting menu, they have an interesting array of red wines.  You get five tastes for $15, and they take the Priority Wine Pass.  All but their Tempranillo were quite good, but don’t take my word on the Tempranillo – I’m not a great fan of that particular varietal.  Tasting was done in the more conventional Temecula manner – you went to the bar for the pours.  No rinsing of the glasses before pouring, and the red wines were not particularly chilled (but it was cool inside, so that made a difference).  They do have water available.
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One of the things I like about Southern California wineries is their willingness to try new things, and Longshadow is in that class.  In their case, it is not about finding some rare grape, such as Refosco, but rather making varietal wines from grapes that are common but grown primarily as a blend.  Longshadow offers two such, Cinsault and Petit Verdot.  Note that they were not on the tasting menu, usually an indication of a popular wine.
They innovate with their wine club as well. Their standard wine club is a two bottle every other month affair, with a minimum of three shipments – unless you want white wine only, in which case you have to buy three bottles every other month.  Discount is 15%, and you get free premium wine tasting as well as other bennies.  They are now offering a unique deal where you pay $19.99 per month without any wine purchase requirements in return for unlimited wine tasting for one person.
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    Jim Treglio

    retired physicist and wine lover

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