I received two tips while in Temecula September 20 – 21, 2008:

1) 18 more wineries are planned.  There are currently 30 in a 3 mile radius!

2) About $500 million dollars will be spent on just THREE new wineries or additions.  Most include hotels, retail, event centers, and such.  Mt. Palomar’s expansion has a budget of $150 million.

Get to Temecula while it is still a quiet backwater for tasting because it will soon be very different.

- jim

OK, not gold. I’m hopeless at that. Excellent wine and questing adventure is vastly easier to find in the hills of the El Dorado wine region. Katya and I joined up with mostly local and Nevada tasters for the Tour de Vine, the region’s harvest festival.

El Dorado is about as laid-back as wine regions get. It is so laid back that only about half the wineries participated. That left 20 to visit in two days so we weren’t short of new experiences.  We found the wines everywhere to be excellent and with enough variety to keep it interesting.

We worked pretty hard and shot all the video and photos we need for the first version of the Discover El Dorado Wine Region video we’ll have available online this winter. We also tasted a little vino at Gold Hill, David Girard, Boeger, Narrow Gate, Sierra Vista, Holly’s Hill, Miraflores, Fitzpatrick, Perry Creek, Colibri Ridge, and Mt. Aukum.  (I taste, not drink, for the most part.)

El Dorado is probably the finest collection of mountain wineries in California and unbelievable back roads to explore!  There are about 40 that are regularly open to the public and they are scattered through the pine and oak hills.  Many have great views.  There are good to excellent picnic areas.  Between wineries enjoy the winding country roads and occasional Gold Rush architecture. Placerville is an old Gold Rush town with galleries, quaint coffee shops, and not enough quality restaurants downtown.

Services are limited in the Fairplay area.  One restaurant and a hardware store “downtown” and a gas station nearby.  Along Carson Road near Highway 50 are numerous fruit stands so stop and try the unfiltered apple cider and homemade pies.  Follow the local “Farm Trail” to other tasting adventures.

As always we were asked many times which winery is our favorite. We don’t pick favorites but you can find your own on WineQuesters.com when we have the winery profiles for this region online by early next year (2009).

- jim

Carneros region is just north of San Francisco Bay and at the southern end of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys.  Most of the terrain is gently rolling hills with the tidal sloughs from the bay encroaching.  The hills are decoraded with vineyards and the occasional farmhouses and wineries.

Last Sunday we escorted a young woman from St. Petersburg, Russia and her San Francisco friend to five Carneros wineries.  The normal breezes off the bay just didn’t happen that day and the still air was HOT.  Huge bunches of grapes hung from vines everywhere awaiting the harvest.  This was wine country at its finest.

Besides our escort service, Katya and I were photographing the wineries for our upcoming road trip series of videos that introduce each of the 19 California wine regions.

We visited the monumental tasting rooms of Vianesa, Jacuzzi, and Gloria Ferrer, the quaint farmhouse tasting room at Cline, and we picnicked at the rustic Larson Family Winery for a little diversity.  So what did we find?

Stop 1 -Viansa has stunning Italian themed architecture, trophy landscaping, and views of the SF Bay and the Sonoma Valley and surrounding mountains.  The extensive gardens, water features, picnic areas, and landscape art create a relaxing and intimate atmosphere that helps visitors fantasize being very rich.  At least until closing time and you have to come back to earth.

Stop 2 -Jacuzzi is also monumental Italian architecture with great views, especially from the tower, and beautiful but less extensive landscaping, water features, and art than nearby Viansa.  The courtyard is especially attractive and restful.  Try their olive oils and wines in the cozy vaulted interior.

Stop 3 -Cline’s tasting room is a comfortable farmhouse with surrounding ponds, landscape art, water features, lawns, and a little yucca forest next to a creek.  The picnic areas are extensive and they are family friendly.  A sign warns about mud sharks in the ponds but I suspect that the carp are about all there is.

Stop 4 -Larson Family is a small winery in a barn with a little petting zoo for the kids.  This is an old horse ranch and retains the ranch character.  Signs on the narrow road off Highway 12 warn of suicide squirrels and encourage you to keep bouncing along the broken pavement until you reach the signpost with various animal’s names on it.  Stop there, pet the farm animals, and taste some of our favorite Carneros wines.

Stop 5 -Gloria Ferrer is Spanish owned and themed.  They focus on sparkling wine and caves.  Enjoy champaign flights on the terrace patio with world class views of the region.

Stop 6 – Our Russian friend was seriously jet-lagged and along with the heat and wine she was out of action after Ferrer and headed back to San Francisco with her friend.  Katya and I drove east into Napa County and photographed Artessa, a stunning modern hilltop tasting room buried in the earth and landscaped with ponds, fountains, modernist art, and expansive views of the nearby mountains.

Stop 7 – Last stop was Domain Carneros, a French chateau style estate with sparkling wines and pino noir.  They serve flights on the terrace patio with a view of the gardens and Napa Valley to the north.  I’ve only visited here a couple of times but I’ve always found the staff to be super friendly and personable.  My first impression, due to the architecture, was that unless your drive a high-end vehicle you really shouldn’t be there.  I’m sure that you could show up in a Dodge Colt and they would still love you.  Still, dress nice.  This place is classy-friendly.

Did I taste at all the wineries?  No.  Work and driving first.

- jim

We’ve set up WineQuesters.com in response to hundreds of requests by vintners, tasting room staff, and tasters.  We’ve included almost all the information criteria requested.  We’ve also setup forums so tasters can ask questions and get recommendations.  We drove over 8,000 miles in the later half of 1997 and GPS mapped some 600 winery tasting rooms that are regularly open to the public.  We developed a winery and wine rating and review feature so tasters can share their experiences.  No other resource exists for tasters!

To make it easier for tasters to explore wine regions they haven’t visited we are currently producing a brief video introduction to each of 19 California wine regions.

So why join when most of the information is available without membership?

Simple, in the forums you can post and can ask me questions about regions and wineries throughout California.  Few people have ever visited almost every tasting room in 19 major California wine regions and I’m delighted to share my experiences.  As a member you can rate and review winery features and wines.  You can help others plan their adventures and have some fun while you are at it.  You can also post your own trip reports.

Have more fun with membership! It is free during our development stage.

- jim

Livermore wineries hosted a nice harvest festival on Sunday and Monday of Labor Day Weekend.  The weather was perfect and the wineries worked hard to make the event interesting with food vendors and live music at most of the locations.

However, almost half the wineries hosted loud nightclub type bands.  In some instances we could not hear anything the tasting bar staff was trying to tell us.  To preserve our hearing for later life and to only taste what we would enjoy, we promptly left without tasting.  We heard other complaints. We certainly don’t feel compelled to ever visit those wineries again.

There seems to be enough neurological research evidence to support the statement that senses cross influence each other.  Hearing can affect taste.  Overloaded senses such as hearing can also overload taste. Those senses are near each other in the brain and somewhat connected.

Loud bands have the following effects and should never be paired with wine tasting:

1. Taste is greatly impacted and sensitivity reduced.
2. People can’t have real conversations.
3. Hearing is damaged.

We attend wine events to enjoy wine and, equally important, to met other people.  Loud music ruins the experience.  If folks want to drink fine wine in a nightclub they can go to downtown San Jose on a Friday or Saturday night and blow their ears off.

Several wineries such as Concannon, Tenuta, and Garre had wonderful groups that created a pleasant background music.

- jim