Gadling

My two-day trip to Temecula, California combined two of the world's great sins: gambling and drinking.

Yesterday I posted about the Pala Casino, located just 20 minutes from Temecula and less than two hours from my home in Los Angeles. Today, we pick up the story Saturday morning after a night of gambling ($50 up!) and a rather greasy, all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at the casino (Mmmm..... bacon...).

Temecula is just a short drive from the Pala Casino and by noon we were heading down Rancho California Road where more than a dozen wineries line the hills on either side of the street.

We stopped at the very first one, Thornton Winery, and were a little concerned when we couldn't find a parking space. This was a bad sign. Although the winery was a beautiful French style Chateau built of stone, it was packed. People were everywhere, milling about, waiting in line for sit-down wine tasting, and otherwise giving this wonderful building a Disneyland sort of feel. This was not what wine tasting should be about. The crowds intimidated us, and we got in the car and drove to the next winery instead.

As we would learn, Temecula is not Napa Valley. Being such a short drive from Los Angeles and San Diego, the wineries can be quite packed on the weekends with a less sophisticated crowd than one would expect to find at a wine tasting (on the other hand, we did not miss the snooty, wine sniffing oenophiles one normally encounters in such places).

Sadly, so much of the crowd tended to be caravans of drinkers doing a pub crawl but with wineries instead. Limos and chauffeured vans trucked around obnoxious frat boys and other gaggles of drunken friends who turned too many of the wineries into nothing more than a loud bar.

That being said, some of the wineries were indeed mellower. Most were still a bit crowded and sometimes it was difficult to get room at the bar, but these were the ones that made the trip a great experience and still very worthwhile.

We spent the afternoon driving from one winery to the next, avoiding those with too many cars in front. Each set-up was similar; $8-10 bought you 6 small tastings and a free wine glass. I was surprised that only one of the wineries, Belle Vista Cilurzo, offered anything to eat with the wine--in this case, slices of salami or bits of chocolate. Otherwise, we were lucky to find crackers, or in most cases, nothing at all.

Because of the mass of people pouring through the wineries, very few of the pourers spent time telling you about the wine. For the most part, they simply told us what it was and then poured a small sip. They'd answer questions when asked, but the personable wine-maker who lingers over your tasting with a wealth of information about the vintage, bouquet, and other attributes just wasn't here.

One of the exceptions was our last stop; Wiens Family Cellars. Wiens is a family owned winery and it was easy to tell. Many of the employees had name tags identifying themselves as part of the Wien family, but more importantly, they were more personable and more passionate about their product than most of the other places we had visited.

Wiens was also less crowded--perhaps because it was the furthest winery--and more spacious. And, it was a beautiful building. The main tasting room was airy, with high-ceilings and a homey, wooden décor. If you become a member of their club, you can also taste in the barrel room (above) – a cool barrel-lined room that further heightens the wine-tasting experience with just the proper touch of ambiance. It was the perfect place to finish a long day of wine tasting.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the wine itself in Temecula, it ran the gamut from terrible to phenomenal; the wonderful thing about wine tasting, however, is weeding out the good from the bad. I think we did a pretty decent job of it.

Filed under: Food and Drink, United States