In March, I went wine tasting in Temecula for my sister's birthday. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, Temecula is about an hour north of San Diego. I was really looking forward to this trip, not only to spend quality time with my family, but also because I've never gone wine tasting. I always dreamed of taking a vacation to Napa for a food and wine adventure. Who knew I could do that in my own backyard?! The first stop on our wine tasting tour was Briar Rose Winery. It's such a cute little place! What makes it so charming? The original owner was a builder at Disneyland who built parts of Toontown and Fairytale Land. He built Briar Rose as a replica of Snow White's cottage for his wife. They even have some of the lamps from Disneyland's Mainstreet on their property. Enough about the property, let's talk wine! The tastings were pretty simple. You could choose either a red wine or white wine tasting and you could either have your tasting inside or outside. It was such a pretty day we decided to enjoy our wine out in the sun. Here, they have a sommeiller come to pour each wine. While they are pouring, you get a little information about each one. Brandon was our sommeiller. He was personable and funny-very energetic. A lot of the wines we tasted were pretty sweet. One even had sugar crystals in it! Once it got busy, Brandon seemed to disappear on us and we had to get the attention of the other sommeiller for our last tasting. Despite this minor hiccup, my experience at Briar Rose is what I picture when I think about wine tasting. If you want a quiet, peaceful setting for your wine tasting this a great place to visit. The next stop on our tour was the South Coast Winery Resort and Spa. This winery was triple the size of Briar Rose. It's a hotel, winery and event space. The grounds are beautifully landscaped and there are a lot pretty flowers. Their tasting room is huge! It's all wood and had a long bar where they poured the wine for tasting and little tables where you could stand and sip. We must have arrived at their peak time because it was loud and crowded. It was so busy that there wasn't much room for all seven of us. We had to squeeze in together at the end of the bar like sardines. It was hot and we couldn't hear each other but the wines were delicious! Unlike Briar Rose, where you could only choose between two preset tastings, here, you could pick any 5 tastings off of their menu of over 20 wines. Since it was busy, we didn't get the individual attention we received at Briar Rose. We basically had to do our own tasting based on the brief description on the menu. I would like to come back here during the week to do another tasting when it's less crowded and maybe do wine tour. The last stop was Thornton Winery. We headed straight to the restaurant area so I didn't get a chance to explore the whole place. I think by this time we were all a little buzzed (well, at least I was buzzed) and ravenous. We just wanted to get straight to the wine. We were seated on the patio and given the tasting menu along with the restaurant menu. Looking at the other tables, the food actually looked pretty good. We settled on their Brie en Croute because we were going to dinner after this last stop. Like South Coast, you are on your own for the wine tasting. There were about nine flights to choose from and I settled on the Red and White Flight. My sister kept talking about the chocolate wine she had the last time she was here and so I was curious to taste that one. Unfortunately, they discontinued the chocolate flight but they still had two of chocolate wines available. One was called A Kiss of Chocolate and the second was a blend of the chocolate wine and sparkling wine called Sparkling Kiss. The straight chocolate wine was cloyingly sweet and very chocolaty. It tasted like a liquefied chocolate bar. The mix with red wine was better but still, there is no way I could even drink any entire glass. The other wines I tried at Thornton blended together in my mind. I think I simply had too many wines. I need to go back one day and give Thornton another chance. I don't know how people spend the whole day wine tasting. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong? Any tips? What is your favorite wine?
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