Palomar Mountain Winery

Mount Palomar Winery is one of the oldest wineries in Temecula, dating back to 1969.  Which begs the question:  Why didn’t I visit it a long time ago?  It is located right on Ranch California.  Must have passed it a hundred times or so.  OK, so I blew it…

Their facility is breathtaking.  It includes an olive grove that you can sit in and drink your wine – I’ll attach the pictures of the olive grove at the end of this review.  The restaurant sits above the vines with a fantastic view of the valley beyond (see pictures below).  Of course, they have plenty of room for special events – indoors and outdoors – and entertainment on weekends.  I’m guessing they are not lacking in customers.

The wine tasting room is quite nice(see picture).  The red wine is served at room temperature, so that is one ding for them.  Fortunately, the tasting room is air conditioned.  They offer six tastings at $20 weekend, $16 weekdays.  As you can see from the menu below they specialize in red wines, with some of their own proprietary mixes.  They did not have anything to munch on at the bar, but they did provide water on request.  The wine server did not rinse the glasses before pouring in a new wine.
​They have two wine clubs, Villa and Estate.  Villa members buy 12 bottles of wine a year (two every other month) with a 20% discount.  They get two complementary wine tastings when visiting the winery, limited to two visits a month.  For Estate members the number of bottles is doubled, the discount increased to 25% and the complementary wine tastings doubled.  They have wine pick-up parties with food – not sure if these are complementary.  Discounts at the restaurant and on purchases of other items are included, though they don’t say what those are.  Again referring to the winetasting menu, some of their wines are sold exclusively to wine club members.

Now pictures of the must-see olive garden: