Mount Palomar Winery — Restaurant in Temecula

DO NOT HAVE YOUR WEDDING HERE We are extremely disappointed with Mount Palomar and their service. My husband and I totally regret having our wedding here. We ran into many multiple stressful problems with this venue in the entire processes of planning our wedding day at this venue. We were promised many things and lied too. Many hidden unexpected prices were thrown into our final total invoice amount. On top of it all there was horrible communication with the events team and Shellie ALWAYS. We would be told different answers or not be gotten back to, they would never answer the phone. If you do not want a stressful, regretted wedding we highly recommend you spend your money and your special day somewhere else. On our wedding day the manager of Mount Palomar Shellie Meline knocked down our entire donut wall that was holding 300 donuts up… Our guests were not able to enjoy our favorite donuts that we planned on having (this was a huge highlight to our wedding to us because my husband works for the donut shop for many years). Shellie did not do anything for ruining our donut wall on our wedding day. At our food tasting with Mount Palomar, we were served rotten filet mignon, we brought it to their attention, and they did not do anything about it. This was a horrible experience for my family to be served rotten meat and have no apologies for this mistake. The entire staff and Shellie Meline that prepared and served the food were very aware that the meat was well rotten and nothing was done about it, they just brushed it under the rug like nothing was wrong. After this incident we did not want to risk this happening at our wedding, so we decided to do outside catering. We were promised that they would have a kitchen that we would be able to use. A couple weeks before our wedding day we were informed by Mount Palomar that they did not have a kitchen for us to use and all they had was a dirt lot area to use due to their recent remodels. Due to this we had to rent an entire kitchen set up for our outside catering that costed $3,567. We had no choice but to have to pay for them for not being able to provide a kitchen for us. This was only the beginning of our problems with Mount Palomar winery. They tried to double charge us on taxes, our food catering charged us for taxes for the food and mount Palomar was also charging another sales tax % of their total price too. The events team was trying to change our plans of décor without informing my wedding coordinator or the bride and groom. After having a big wedding here we expected their services to be a lot more professional but they let us down big time. We can honestly go on and on about the horrible things they put us through for our big day. All we can say is DO NOT have your wedding or event here, it is no where worth it. Mount Palomar is extremely inconsiderate and unprofessional. I hope nobody ever has to go through what we went...

My friends and I went wine tasting for her birthday, and most of us not being wine drinkers, we went with a Groupon for a flight and charcuterie board for two, it was me and my husband and her and hers. Only redeeming factor was the server, he was super kind, just stretched thin maybe? It just didn't feel/look busy, was supposed to be only outdoor seating and I could see everyone they were helping, they were often inside. When we arrived, there was a large party inside looking like they were dropping a ton of money and almost done (lots of open wine bottles on the table). Outside there was a party of about 8, and a couple on the patio and then the 4 of us. We knew we wouldn't be able to sit together from what the Groupon said, but we got to sit near each other so that was fine. We sat down at about 2:30p, ordered maybe 15 in. My board and flight came out around 3:15, and it took about 20 minutes for my friend to get her board and flight. We know we'd be getting things separately since we were "different tables" but our server knew we were together and it felt really awkward for that huge gap of time where I had it and she didn't. There was not enough bread to go with all the items on the board (which was decent but nothing special), so we asked for more, they said it's an additional charge of $2 per loaf (they were about 6 inch demi French breads), but when we got the bill they were $4 each. The board consisted of a few cut up strawberries, handful of grapes, olives, various sliced meats, big pile of large chunks of a hard cheese like parmesan, a spreadable spicy cheese that was tasty, and a smaller pile of smoked gouda and one loaf of bread. We ended up spending 2 hours in total there, a good chunk of time was also spent waiting for the bill and waiting for it to be picked up and returned to us. I would have loved to get a glass of the wine I enjoyed off of the flight, but it was so long of a wait to get anything that we decided to just call it a day...

TWO STARS NOT FIVE!!! Ok. So we went because of the high school football fund raiser and the Journey tribute band. The sign on the tasting room door said open til 6pm but we were told not tonight because of the band playing. So you had to close your eyes and throw a dart to decide what kind of wine to buy at an exorbitant price by the glass if you've never been here. Ugh. Strike one. We tried a glass of the sangria...bleah. Wayyyy too sweet. Then a glass of the Bistro white...plenty of alcohol apparently from the wicked bite it had...but next to no flavor. Was like drinking water. At that point, we no longer felt like drinking here. Strike two. We'd also planned to eat there because they advertise a Bistro, but again, of course, because of the band being there that night, their menu was extremely limited for the night and not their normal fare. It consisted, as I recall, of only a charcuterie board box, which the guy taking the orders (who we finally got to after standing in line for 20 minutes) could not even tell us what was on it other than saying some kind of meats, some kind of cheese, some kind of fruit and maybe some bread; a lettuce salad; popcorn; nachos; and jalapeno poppers. Period. And, we were warned, supplies were limited. Strike three. Sigh. The venue is beautiful. Most of the staff tried their best to be helpful, but it was quite a disorganized mess and quite frankly the wine left a great deal to be desired, although admittedly we might have found something we liked had we been able to be educated and benefit from a wine tasting before hand. With so many great places in Temecula, like Peltzers and Wilson Creek, I don't see us venturing to this location again. Oh, and the concert, which was to be from 6-10pm, still had yet to start at nearly 8pm although a duo warm-up band did play from a little after 7pm to 7:30 pm. AND!!! I gave it 2 stars but when I post the review it changes to 5 stars without my...