Europa Village September 2020

​This week we headed back up the road to Temecula, specifically Europa Village.  If you recall my review of their winery, they were in the process of reorganizing from one winery to three wineries, building three new tasting rooms and adding villas.  I am happy to report that the tasting room for the Spanish winery, Bolero, has been completed.  However, it is an indoor facility so it is not yet open.At the original tasting room, the outdoor area reserved for the wine club members is now the main wine tasting area.  See pictures below.  Nice crowd for a Friday afternoon.  Misters all around the canopy.

​First thing they do when you sit down is bring you a glass of water.  They offer a “fixed” tasting menu (shown below) for $25 per person, with the servers pouring the wine at the table in the more traditional series tasting method.  I put fixed in quotes because wines not on the fixed menu are available for tasting.  Glass is included in the tasting price.
Now we are primarily red wine drinkers, but for some reason decided to taste three of their white wines – Arneis, Viognier, and their Albarino blend they call Libido.  One of the things I’ve noted since I started in on my winery review process is that the really good wines really stand out against their lesser competitors.  Such is the case with the Europa Village Viognier.  We started with the Arneis and really liked it, but the Viognier just blew it right out of the water.

​Below this paragraph is a picture of the Europa Village wine list.  See anything unusual?  No?  Look again, this time at the bottom of the list.  There it is, imported wines offered for sale at a Temecula winery!  Very interesting development.  I tried the Dolcetto as I have only tasted the American version of that wine.  Frankly speaking, the American versions are better….