Vindemia Vineyard & Winery — Attraction in Temecula

My wife and I met my daughter and son-in-law in Temecula, to do a bit of wine tasting. First stop was Vindemia, a small, beautiful vineyard, with an elevated outdoor tasting area, up on a hill. We did our regular tastings, and liked 4 out of the 5 Reds we sampled.

That's when the fun began. The owner/ vintner walked up to the tasting booth and began chatting with us. He was holding 2 label-less wine bottles. This guy was super friendly, and animated. He asked us to do a taste test on these 2 wines he was developing. The owner called them "X and "Y and the letters were marked on the corks. He poured 2 samples-one for each couple, and we put our taste buds to work. We liked X, and my daughter and son-in-law liked Y.

He then asked us if we wanted to try one of his better recent wines, called More Cowbell. This guy told us he and his buddy came up with the name one night, while getting a little buzzed, sampling this new red he was working on. His friend said, "I think it needs a little more cowbell, a la the Saturday Night Live skit, with Will Ferrell. The name stuck! We tried the 2014, and 2015 More Cowbell, and liked the 2015 one so much we bought a bottle. It was fun here, and we felt lucky to be able to talk with the creator of tasty wines we've been buying for the past 10 years. Talk about a personal touch! You don't get interactions like this at the large wineries.

This little gem is tucked away, up a gravel road, perched on a hillside overlooking the vineyard. It's always been one of our favorite Temecula wineries. Please...

Be prepared for these things, especially if you are wearing sandals: You will need to walk up hill, through bark, to the next level. Then you will have to walk uphill, across gravel and up railroad tie steps to finally reach where they actually serve the wine. Then, you get a glass of wine (extremely small pour) and have to navigate back down said railroad tie steps two levels to get somewhere to sit. Cost is $30 for 5 very small tastings and you will be your own server/waiter. These are not really "higher end" wines but they charge you a lot, most expensive we paid and not a really satisfying experience. People behind the bar were not unpleasant - they just were not warm and inviting. Wines were ok but they are expensive. Will not go there again and, interestingly, we met a couple who were also here that went to the next winery and we asked them how they liked this one. The first thing they said was "Wow! I never thought I'd be walking uphill through gravel to get a glass of wine."...

I surprised my wife with a morning balloon ride for our anniversary and I totally knocked it out of the park. We started here at the winery and you will need to get up early but what an amazing experience!! We shared our morning with 2 other couples but we still had plenty of room to take in all the spectacular views and listen to the many stories and some history of the area from our pilot Dave. We got up pretty high but it was so peaceful and quiet you could hardly tell that we went up to around 2000’. The whole crew ensured we had a fantastic experience I couldn’t have made a better choice to celebrate our anniversary. Thanks to the California Dreaming crew and especially Dave who is also the owner of Vindema Winery and shared a lot of interesting facts and insights making this an engaging and enjoyable morning. He also gifted us a bottle of his wine as an anniversary present which was sweet. I highly recommend this experience for...