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On Wednesday, March 13, we decided to drive to Temecula to do a little wine tasting and have some lunch. We had (still have) a gift card to a winery/restaurant called "Avensole" and we planned to use it for lunch. Turns out, the restaurant is closed on Wednesdays. Guess we should have checked.
First stop was Halter Ranch, the Temecula tasting room of the iconic Paso Robles winery.
This guy, Heber, was pouring the tastings and we had a lot of fun there. Daughter Debbie is a Halter Ranch wine club member and Heber allowed us to use her membership for free tastings and discount bottle purchases!
Lorri with Heber in the tasting room
The vines on the property were just getting ready to bud, but Halter Ranch does not use the resulting fruit because it is not organic. The property was the former Hart Family winery which Halter Ranch acquired in 2022.
Since Avensole was closed, we asked Heber and friends where to go for lunch and they recommended Renzoni.
And it was a good choice. The restaurant is called "Mama Rosa's Trattoria"
We had pizza and wine and it all was pretty good (for Temecula!)
This is their tasting room and shop, fairly typical of the level of tasting rooms in Temecula. Hopefully someday the fruit of the vine will be as impressive as some of the architecture.
The winery building
They're ripping out Cab and planting Montepulciano. Hmmm. Maybe Montepulciano will grow better here than the Cab did. I hope so.
Looking over some of the countryside.