Europa Village

We must have driven by Europa Village a hundred times as it is located in the heart of the wine country on Rancho California in Temecula.  For some reason, we never stopped in.  Eventually my wife did some work with a fellow who had just joined their wine club and raved about the wine, so we paid them a visit.  And once again I must admit that I missed the boat….
Or did I?  You see, Europa Village is a relatively new winery (started in 2011) that has begun a major expansion.  They’ve added an Inn and are building three separate wineries – one for Spanish wines, one for Italian wines, and one for French wines.  In addition to the wineries, they are adding villas and a cave.  The Spanish winery will be the first to open, followed by the Italian and then the French.  The entire project is expected to be completed in four years.  Some pictures of the existing facility follow.  As you can see, the winery has a Mediterranean design – very modest exterior and a central courtyard.

​The current tasting room is quite nice, though lacks any seating so it falls into the stand-at-the-bar category.  Of course, you can sit outside with your wine where they use misters to keep temperatures within reason.  I have to point out that the seats outside for the peasants, i.e., non-wine club members, are of the high table/chair design.  Tasting is done the right way – wines are reasonable temperature, water is readily available, they provide bread sticks to munch on, and they rinse your glass with the new wine to be tasted between pours.  Nice if they were to bring the wine to your table – maybe in the new wineries?

​For $20 you get to taste six of their standard wines.  For $30 you get to taste six of their standard wines and two premium wines.  Well, actually, a bit more than that – they begin your tasting experience with a dry sparkling wine not on the wine list and not counted as one of your tastes.  Made the right way, using methode champenoise, it was quite nice.  We bought a bottle.
My wife and I split the $30 tasting.  This allowed for some interesting “parallel” tasting, much like one does with a flight of wines.  Now, as I mentioned above, they are splitting the winery into three separate wineries – Spanish, Italian, and French.  Not surprisingly, they label their Spanish wines “Bolero”, Italian “Vienza”, and French “C’est La Vie”.  I’m not a big fan of Spanish wines, so won’t say more about their versions other than I am still not a fan of Spanish wines.  On the Italian side we tasted in parallel their 2016 vintage Montipulciano and Sangiovese.  It is really amazing how different these two varietals are!  Both are really good, though the Montipulciano still needs a bit of aging.
​We moved onto the French wines.  Not being fans of Merlot, we tried their Syrah and a Rhone blend.  Unfortunately for the Rhone blend, their Syrah is really, really good.  For our last pair we tasted two of their premium wines, a Pinot Noir (not estate grown) and their premier Sangiovese.  Both were quite nice, though I liked the less expensive Sangiovese better.  See their tasting menu below.

​If you join their wine club you get to sit in the nice area outside, as shown in the pictures below.  They have three levels of their wine club – Passport, Premiere, and Magellan.  Passport is a standard club – two bottles every other month, 20% discount, free wine tasting for two each visit, 10% merchandise discount, and a very nice 20% discount on rooms at the Inn.  The Premiere club ups the number of bottles to three every other month, with one from their Premiere listing.  Magellan ups this to four bottles every other month, with one from their Premiere listing and one from their Magellan listing.

​Now all of the wines are selected by their Sommelier, not their winemaker.  Look on the picture of the tasting room shown earlier.  Behind the bar at the far end you see an elderly gentleman – well, maybe not as elderly as me, but that’s another story.  Dr. Doug, as he is called, is a Level 3 Sommelier.   I did get to speak with him a bit, enough to know that he really knows wine, which, of course, goes with the territory.
As a final note, you can rent a pretty neat  cabana for your group.  See pictures below.