A Region Revitalized: Why A Weekend Getaway to the Temecula Valley is Worth Your Time

Here is an experiment for you.  Go up to someone in your neighborhood, your office, or your next social event, bring up the subject of spending a weekend in the Temecula Valley, and gauge their ensuing reaction.  If you are met with any combination of a nose crinkle, eye roll, or a head shake in a negative fashion, proceed to ask the person when the last time they have tried a Temecula wine.  Chances are the response you will receive will be an older date range going back to around 2000 or earlier.  If this is indeed the case, you will have every right to tell them that the opinion that they hold in regard to Southern California’s lone wine region is invalid, outdated, and needs to be re-assessed immediately.  Furthermore, politely yet sternly inform them they owe it to themselves to take a couple of days out of their busy schedule and explore the area in all of its award-winning glory.

Such an initial reaction shouldn’t be all that surprising, but it is why your subsequent retort is so necessary.  For the root of the negative opinion most of the region’s harsher critics carry lay in the difficulties that plagued the region in its early years.  When the first round of pioneering winemakers settled into the region about thirty years ago, they did so armed with bad information culled from scientists at UC Davis, whose guidance on how to properly utilize the land turned out to be completely incorrect.  This resulted in the region producing the inferior wines that Temecula naysayers tend to build their opinion around.  Around 2000, however, a weird plant ailment called Pierce’s Disease devastated Temecula’s vines so horrifically, the vintners essentially had to hit the reset button on their properties and start the winemaking process from the beginning.  This turned out to be a blessing, as the wineries told the UC Davis types to go away and brought in professionals from other wine regions to help plant and cultivate grapes that would work best in the region’s unique layout.  Ever since this rather serendipitous act, the Temecula Valley has been hauling in its fair share of hardware; so much so, it is no longer news in the California wine world when a label from the Temecula Valley beats out a label from Napa or the Central Coast for a tasting award.

While this dramatic shift in the quality of the wines calls for anyone who still clings to a negative opinion about the Temecula Valley to revisit the wines, it also serves as a beckoning for Orange County types to spend a weekend exploring the region.  This, too, may come as a bit of a surprise to those who have not been there since the area’s renaissance, as back in the day the thought of spending more than a few hours in the region may have bordered on overkill.  Yet this is no longer the case.  Firstly, there are now over 30 wineries in the region.  Yes, its scope is not as enormous as the Napa/Sonoma area, but consider:  Even if you were to plan on hitting half of the properties that pepper the area, it still may be wise to turn a journey here into two a multiple-day adventure to avoid things like palate fatigue and the over-indulgent effects of too many samples.  Also, there is much more to do in Temecula than to merely zip from tasting room to tasting room.  Indeed, on any given weekend, it is quite possible to cobble together a two day itinerary that includes wine samplings, a spa treatment, an exquisitely high-end dinner, an evening of music under the sparkle of starlight, a balloon ride at sunrise, and a little gambling action before bedtime.  Not too shabby to say the least, especially when you consider that all of these activities – most of which can be experienced on the grounds of the wineries themselves – are contained within about a 15 minute radius.

If anything, the thought of indulging in a weekend getaway to the Temecula Valley is filled with so many intriguing options you have every right to crinkle your own nose or roll your eyes at any ill-informed cynic that you may encounter when you conduct your experiment.  In fact, you should.  It really is the right thing to do.

By Rich Manning