Temecula Valley Winery Tour

Temecula Valley Winery Tour

The Volvos return to "where the sun shines through the mist"

By Dave Barton

On Saturday, February 16th, it was time once again for the annual Temecula Winery Tour, coordinated again by Del Skoog. The turnout was great... eleven cars from 1800's and 122's to 240's and a 740 were present, along with 18 participants. The weather started out a little gloomy, but eventually warmed up to a perfect touring day. Beginning in the southern end of Temecula, we snaked through the back roads and came up on our first stop, the Santa Margarita Winery.

This is a small, unassuming place from the outside, and well off the main roads, but the owner opened the place up to reveal countless barrels of wine aging from past year's harvests. Unfortunately, our timing was a little off for a wine purchase since this winery sold out of the previous year's offering shortly before our event (and this small winery produces 1,000 cases per year), but the owner treated all of us to a variety of wines he kept for sampling to our tasting pleasure. This was a great educational experience as we were shown the subtle differences that take place when producing wines. The years of experience and the art of making, storing and aging a fine wine should not be underestimated. Everyone agreed that the wines produced here were superb.

Our second stop was the Miramonte Winery on a magnificent hilltop on Rancho California Road. This is a beautiful place with a large, well adorned tasting room. Again, a variety of fine wines were sampled. There was a charge of $3 for the wine tasting, including the glass, which serves as a token for a free wine tasting, if you bring it when you come back (even in pieces)!

Our third and final stop was the Churon Winery, just down the road from Miramonte. This place is huge and breathtaking, complete with a tasting room and a 24-room hotel. We made this our lunch stop where we relaxed and enjoyed the view from their beautiful patio. It was a nice time to chat and catch up with friends

we hadn't seen for a while. But all things have to come to an end, and it was with some reluctance that we broke camp at about 2:30 p.m., and made our separate ways home with newfound treasures for our wine collections.

We thank Del Skoog for leading us on another exciting Temecula Valley Wine Tour, which has come to be a SDVSA annual tradition. All the participants, some of who had to drive a considerable distance from Los Angeles and Orange County, deserve hearty thanks, too. Now we are already looking forward to next year's tour to discover new treasures in the beautiful Temecula Valley.

[From David Hunt's Jan. 2000 article "THE TEMECULA VALLEY," (http://www.sdvsa.org/TheTemeculaValley.htm). Temecula is a Native American word which translated means "where the sun shines through the mist."]

Santa Margarita Winery and Vineyard. Unfortunately, this vineyard is one of the hardest hit in the
Temecula Valley by the Pearson's glassy winged sharpshooter disease, which kills vines.