Leoness Cellars

Some time ago, I can’t say exactly when, the nation’s restauranteurs decided that they really didn’t like their patrons.  To help drive them away, they thought of various ways to ruin their dining experience.  First they removed rugs from the floors and tapestries from the walls to make sound echo through the dining room.  As that did not prove effective, they piped in loud music.  Then, to both add to the noise level and destroy any semblance of ambiance, they removed the acoustic ceiling tiles.  The final steps are now underway, replacing normal tables with normal chairs with high tables and high chairs to torture their clients…
So what does this have to do with wine, you may ask (other than serving red wine at room temperature)?  Well, you really can’t enjoy good wine in an unpleasant environment.  Fortunately, at least one winery, Leoness Cellars, has arrived at the same conclusion.  Their restaurant, shown below, has an ambiance that matches their great cuisine and wine.  No carpet on the floor, but otherwise pretty good design.  OK, so don’t believe me about the food – hey, I’m not the one that voted them as the #1 Winery Restaurant four years running (USA Today poll)!

Located on de Portola in Temecula just down the road from Robert Renzoni, Leoness also has a great patio just outside the tasting room with a magnificent view (see below).  The tasting room is a nice operation.  General price of tasting is $16 weekdays, $20 weekends for six tastes.  While it may seem that they built a winery to support their restaurant, they actually began as farmers, hence all of their wines are estate grown.

Their tasting menu is shown below, along with their wine price list.  They have a wine club.  Correction, they have four wine clubs, each with three fixed price levels.  Basically, a fixed-price wine club requires that you pay a certain price per wine club period for which you get a fixed number of bottles of wine.  Free wine tasting for club members is included in all of their variations.
Did I mention that they have a really good restaurant?  I mean, a really good restaurant….