Frangipani Estate Winery

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.

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.

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....

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.