Overall, our fun group of five had an absolute blast!
Joanna was our guide. Chris was our driver. Joanna is AMAZING at quickly learning peoples names. We were super impressed with her. The beginning started out a bit sketchy and we wondered if we made the best decision to go with this particular tour. Here’s why. First, We have a 10 AM departure from the “Stampede” parking lot in Old Town Temecula. Our departure time was changed very slightly the day prior. Unbeknownst to us, we were then dropped off at South Coast Winery. Boy were we excited, we just knew this would I have wine tasting extravaganza’s...sadly, we quickly learned that it was not. We were only there to get off of one shuttle and board another. Here, more people boarded. We received our itineraries for the day and proceeded to at least 3 more hotels for more pick-ups.
We visited Leoness, Cougar, Lorimar and Bella Vita. The first stop was at Leoness, the only place that included an actual tour, I preferred it that way. This seemed to be a crowd favorite. The highlight for me was the scenery and chocolate truffle. I enjoy sweet wines, so this tour wasn’t my cup of tea.
Onward to Cougar. This was my favorite (wine tasting wise) of the four. They have an AMAZING peach sangria. Of course, I took home a bottle of that. The Pink Cougar was also nice, I like that 10% of its proceeds go to cancer, so I purchased that as well. This is also where we had a filling lunch. My turkey club was yummy. My friends seemed to enjoy the Italian club, eggplant sandwich and Mediterranean salad. The bit part was the brownie. Save ur to pair with your wine tastings after lunch:)
Next up were Bel Vino and Lorimar. Lorimar was a nice way to end. There was live music and the weather was perfect. Wasn’t impressed with the wines and the service was a bit snotty.
The day was wonderful. Two things that were small disappointments:
1. There were five of us and we would’ve loved the opportunity to request wineries as opposed to going to those which were pre-chosen. For the price, we should be able to do so. I wasn’t thrilled about some of the wineries, but it was nice to gain exposure to two wineries that I would’ve never otherwise considered.
2. We weren’t happy being told we had to sit in the five seats in the back of the bus. They were small and uncomfortable. Didn’t make things any better being told by Joanna that they “ normally don’t seat people in those seats, they are usually reserved for peoples wine purchases...ouch!” Thanks for making us feel like chopped liver. Did we not pay the same price everyone else paid?
Thank goodness everyone was pretty tipsy by the end of the day. We were all singing and laughs so loudly that it over-compensated for the terrible seating arrangements.