Temecula Wine Country

The end of the season. 

If you've wondered why the posts have been so sporadic over the last couple months it's because I've been having fun.  Anson and I have had friends and family in town or been traveling almost every weekend since early August, and in between I've been working on my new website, Sarah Olson Photography. (Yay!) Never one to let work get in the way of fun, the blog has suffered, but the cool thing is I have a back log of photos to get to in the coming weeks.

So go back in time with me to August, a warmer time, a time when life was simpler, when the days were longer and the wine was still just grapes. My brother, Dave, and his wife, Theresa, visited us for a week and we took them out to Temecula, about an hour and a half from our house. I remember hearing somewhere that Temecula was the original California wine country, the missionaries having planted grapes there long before anyone ever thought about planting grapes in the Napa Valley.  I supposed I could do a little research to verify that, but it seems just as easy to believe it.

My handsome brother and his beautiful wife.

If you have visitors in town and want to hit up some wineries, Temecula's proximity makes it ideal from Orange County and Los Angeles.  You can start in quaint Old Town Temecula, mosey into a dozen antique stores and have lunch at The Public House, a new modern gastropub in the center of town.  Then make your way along Rancho California Road or De Portola Trail (by way of Hwy 79) and stop at whatever winery strikes your fancy. The beautiful rolling countryside wrapped in trellised vines makes you forget you're right smack in the middle of an urban sprawl that extends from Santa Barbara to San Diego. As a result, the wineries receive many visitors on the weekends. Many many visitors. Particularly bachelorette  and birthday parties. Arriving by Hummer limo and party bus. Dressed in costumes. Drinking a lot and "wooing." There are a lot of "woo" girls at most wineries.

So at our first stop, growing weary of the wooing and shoulder-to-shoulder wine tasting, we asked the girl who was pouring wine where we should go, and as her head swiveled from customer to customer, she advised us to go to Doffo Winery. That was the best advice we got all day.

The owner, Marcelo Doffo, pours wine, along with his wife, from a small tasting room filled with antique motorcycles on top of a quiet hill. It's a relatively new winery, and they've just begun selling wine.  It's worth it to check it out if only for the hospitality and Napa style experience.

Theresa got a lift from owner Marcelo.

You can see the beautiful vineyards that wind their way back to Mount Palomar. Behind us, the soon-to-be iconic Doffo windmill.

By this time it was late in the day and Marcelo advised us to go over to Long Shadow Ranch.  Again, excellent advice.  We posted up at the outdoor bar and as the stifling heat gave way to the cool night air, we tasted the wines at this real working ranch.  We watched friends and family arrive with picnics to spread out on the lawn while kids played along the vineyards. The sun set, and soon a live band began to play classic rock covers. True to the name, we watched the shadows grow long and left only because we knew we had a drive in front of us.  It was a perfect day.

A short two weeks later, my parents visited and we repeated the same fun day, this time our friend, Liz, who lives in the area, joined us.  We couldn't avoid the "woo" girls this time either, but we did make it a point to end our day at Long Shadow and all was right with the world.