Falkner Winery — Restaurant in Temecula

I would like to start with what was positive about the wedding venue. Beautiful place, guest enjoyed the food. Now here comes the negative! I will start of by saying, I found their organization and professionalism in a situation where a big cost is in place was very poor and not satisfactory. Unfortunately, the day of the wedding, it was windy. Because the winery is at 1500ft the winds kick up with more intensity than at a lower altitude. They know this and in my opinion should have solutions for this kind of last minute situations. I ordered heaters knowing it was going to be cold after the sun came down. I was reassured that with heaters people were going to be comfortable outdoors. The heaters (expensive $100 per heater) didn’t do the job. The wind was blowing them off. It was impossible to keep them lit! They were not suitable for such large place and circumstances. A waste of money! The guest were cold and uncomfortable. The cocktail hour was a fiasco because guest were hiding behind doors to stay away from the wind and cold weather. Because of it, they were not enjoying what was being served. The servers didn’t go to those guests. The wedding coordinator was no where to be found when vendors start showing up and I had to go hunting for her. As I read other reviews, they have the same complaint about this issue. I was told that it wasn’t necessary to move venue indoors because with heaters, dancing and drinking, people were fine and no complaints have come from wind/cold weather. I guess I must be the first to have had this issue. They realized how bad it was and offered to move us indoors and we had to wait for it after dinner was served. We did move indoors for dancing which helped. Not sure why no lights were turned on inside. The only light was the one provided by the DJ from his panel. It felt very inhospitable to me and got some comments from the guests about that as well. So much effort was poured into making this day a special day and unfortunately, the feeling was of sadness and disappointment. If considering this venue for your wedding, I strongly recommend you have your own wedding coordinator that can deal with all the details that a big event like this requires. Falkner will not provide it to you even though ithey make it sound like they do. Research your DJ well. Ours wasn’t that good. Kept changing the songs in the middle of one and people would stop dancing. There was some kind of a guilt trip played by him because he said that as a favor to us, he moved the music indoors. I could go on and on with what was not acceptable but will stop here. A wedding event happens only once! If not memorable one cannot take it back. The love is there, so that will remain. Mother...

We had many issues with Falkner Winery for our May 2025 wedding. The individual who we toured the property with, went over the contract and then signed the contract with was not the individual who we would later have to conduct business with. That person turned out to be Danielle. We first met Danielle at the food tasting (which did not have all of the options that were on the menu to try). She seemed distracted but we chalked that up to the nature of the busy event. We should not have given her this benefit of the doubt. Our next interaction with her was virtual to go over day of plans with her and our wedding planner. She was unfamiliar with our contract. She kept stating that things we had already had guaranteed in our contract would not be allowed. When this was called out, she threatened or whined that she “will just have to go to Loretta” - the owner. She then reviewed our contract, signed 8+ months ago, and then said they “would compromise and make an exception” for our alcohol and mixers - despite this being explicitly written in the contract and signed by both parties… unclear how an agreed upon contract is them gifting us a special exception. Overall, very poor interactions with Danielle. This continued on our wedding day. They were late putting out the champagne welcome and guests had to walk back up to the barrel room to pick up the champagne. They ended the champagne early and did not have enough. They had said that there would be a coffee bar, which was never provided. On top of all this, there were a lot of insects. At the end of the night we found out Danielle was leaving the company 2 weeks after our wedding. Wish she had left 2 months earlier! It seems that there is a lot of turnover among their staff, which was an issue since we booked 2 years out and had to deal with so many new faces. Also, there are some exposed nails along the pathway leading up to the ceremony that my dress caught on and caused the train to rip. That being said, it is a beautiful venue with beautiful sunset views but it was really the rest of our vendor team that made it such a wonderful wedding. The food was great, some of our guests commented that it was the best food they've had...

I read the reviews before visiting so I expected better than what I experienced. The customer service was great, but the food and wine taste experience was not. We did a group wine taste and were given 4 tastes and a 10 minute guided tour to the production room. The first two tastes were great but the third and fourth were served by a lady in a rush. There were only 2 workers behind the counter when we went for our 3rd taste but the lady did not change my glass which had remnants of the red wine I previously tasted when i ordered a white wine. The lady also did a quick dash of wine as she wanted me in and out. This happened for the 4th taste as well. Also turns out you can keep the wine glass but me and my group were never told so the majority of us had returned the glass.

After our wine taste and mini tour, we went to the Pinnacle restaurant for lunch. I did not see photos of the menu in reviews but the food looked good and people boasted how great the restaurant was in the reviews. In my honest opinion, the menu was limited and lacking. No desert section and they charge for bread sticks. The food was not 5 stars like reviews mentioned, the presentation is beautiful but taste is just ok. One of the plates my table ordered contained pasta which was lacking in taste and a bit hard. The sauce helped give it flavor but you could tell the pasta was simply cooked and then covered with sauce, you would expect for the price you pay the pasta to be well done and savory. I will be recreating the plate at home but with mushrooms or the cream included with the pasta to give it flavor instead of boiling in plain water as the taste we had implied. The look of the restaurant is beautiful but insanely loud due to the echos. Opening a window or even having a carpet would help with the noise. Many reviews stated this but did not think much of it since the owner had responded and acknowledged their concerns. Unfortunately it is worse than I thought since you need to talk loud for the person in front of you to hear you. I’d like to point out that even our waiter could not hear us when ordering so we had to speak loudly as if we...