Cycling Temecula, Southern California’s Wineries
Southern California’s wine country, Temecula, is easy to get to being about 1 hour from San Diego and Orange County; and under one and a half hours from Los Angeles and Palm Springs. Today these beautiful rolling hills have over 40 wineries with tours, restaurants, and resorts to support them.
Grabbing my ride for a wine-filled adventure through Temecula
The area is great to visit year-round, but some may want to avoid the hottest parts of the summer which are typically August and September. We went in November and while it was beautiful and perfect for cycling, it was not as lush green as it is earlier in the year.
We made the easy commute up from San Diego and rented bikes from Eric Tallaksen with Pedal to the Medal Cycling. We met Eric at the South Coast Winery parking lot and picked up 2 nice Cannondale mountain bikes. Eric gave us a water, bike locks, maps and some general recommendations and we were off. An easy ride through some parking lots and we were at Ponte Winery.
Ponte was built in 1984 but has been nicely refurbished in 2017 to give it a light open feel. Their wines are great, and we have heard their restaurant is really good too. We started our day with the Ponte Angry Wife white wine. They describe it as having fruit-forward notes of kiwi, apricot and mandarin orange which made it a perfect start to the day. While there we got to see Floyd the Harris Hawk. By working only 3 days per week, Floyd he keeps away all the rodents and small birds. His owner told me his personality is like a cat, he’ll come when called; but only if it suits him.
Floyd the Hawk
After Ponte you can make a short ride to Wiens Family Cellars by riding through a vineyard. (Just get to this spot using your phone’s Google Maps App). We wanted to get in some more biking, so we did not stop too long here. Our next stop was Monte De Oro Winery. You can ride along the main road to get there, but we opted to ride through a grapefruit farm and some vineyards. It was not a marked path, and parts were a bit difficult.
Monte De Oro has a beautiful patio but had the worst wines and service. It seemed that everyone there came with a coupon and the staff rushed through everything. Our server even prefaced his welcome speech with “even though I am in a hurry, you don’t need to be in a hurry”. The pours were small, and the main focus was around selling their wine club.
Next, we rode over to Wilson Creek Winery right next door. Wilson Creek is the largest and has lots of event space and areas for families. They had bocce ball, corn hole and countless other games and in a classy upscale setting.
We set off to find the long downhill dirt road that Eric had recommended but first ran into Palumbo Family Winery. Palumbo is one of the smaller wineries we really enjoyed our time talking with co-owner Cindy Palumbo and her staff. It was beautiful, relaxing, and their dog ‘Red Dog’ dog was welcoming. It was perfect after having been to the larger wineries. Although I am not much of a red wine drinker, they only have reds and to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. We wanted to buy a bottle but since we were mountain biking down a dirt road, we opted to skip.
Next, we went off to find the Camino del Vino dirt road. It was an easy 2 mile ride to Leoness Cellars . Leoness was absolutely beautiful, but we promised ourselves one more winery and then to grab dinner in Old Town Temecula. So we rushed off to Danza del Sol Winery. Somewhere on the way we ran into a patch of goat head weeds and got several thorns in our tires. Fortunately, we did not get flat tires. You’ll want to avoid this ground weed if you can. At this point in our day, we called Eric and let him know where we left the bikes and took a Lyft Ride Share to Old Town Temecula. We had several recommendations for The Gambling Cowboy or 1909 Temecula, but we opted to get dinner at Soro’s Mediterranean Grill. The food was excellent and being a Saturday night, the whole town was lively. I don’t think you can go wrong in Old Town Temecula.
