The Cooking Baking Dancing Chemist: Wine Tasting and Horseback Riding

Giant Champagne Bottle Sculpture outside the Winery

ESFSW is an absolutely amazing boyfriend! Months in advance of our 1 year dating anniversary and my 30th birthday, he planned a day of wine tasting and horseback riding in Temecula! We had reschedule once because of rain and the threat of thunder and lightening on the weekend of our 1 year anniversary. But this lead to our little adventure happening close to my birthday and also allowed us to enjoy an incredible brunch.

Our little outing fell on a Sunday so we decided to skip church and head up to Temecula early and wander around the Old Town section a little bit. Neither of us had been before and it was a really beautiful day. The sun was out but the sky was filled with beautiful puffy clouds and it was cool and crisp! When we were wandering up and down Old Town Front Street we spotted some cool old cars.

The flame job on the one was pretty impressive!

This was our favorite!

The package deal through Wine Country Trails included lunch, wine tasting for two and horseback riding through a vineyard. When we got to Wilson Creek we had a choice to make as far as our lunch options. Normally the lunch special was the choice of boxed lunches that could be enjoyed anywhere on Wilson Creek's grounds. However for a little more we could upgrade to the new brunch that is being offered at the Creek Side Grille on Sundays. After a little discussion we decided that the brunch was worth the upgrade and put our names in. Since we had a little bit of a wait we decided to taste a couple wines in the mean time.

Can you guess who was tasting the white and who was tasting the rose?

It was pretty busy at Wilson Creek when we arrived and for anyone who has been this is normal. It is a pretty popular winery and for good reason! They have a beautiful property which has a little creek, plenty of tables outside to sit and enjoy a glass of wine, and pretty good wines to boot. They also are the home of the San Diego famous Almond Champagne (Champagne - legally true Champagne only comes from the France's Champagne region, sparkling wines that are produced in the same manner in the States are sometimes still labeled Champagne but are technically sparkling wines as they weren't produced in France. I still call them champagne and I think most people do as well!). We found a space a the tasting bar for the two of us and were greeted by a friendly older gentleman, . As we were deciding what to taste first we started talking to _, who is a retired San Diego mailman. Further into the conversation we discover that he use to deliver mail to ESFSW's grandparents in Clairmont! It is a small world. He was really helpful and poured ESFSW extra big pours (he then shared with me - and yes things seemed to be backwards today, I usually benefit from generous wine servers). We learned that if you work for a winery in CA you can taste free at any other winery in CA and you get the club price on wines. I think this might be a good retirement job personally! After 2 tastes we decided to go check if our table was ready at the Grille.

Wine Barrels with the Creek Side Grille in the back ground. Isn't the sky beautiful!

Back at the Grille we were seated and asked if we wanted the unlimited champagne (we declined since you have to be sober to ride the horses) with our lunch or any other beverages. After receiving our coffee we went to check out the buffet. It was pretty small buffet by buffet standards but everything looked amazing. They had poached salmon, oysters, crab legs and shrimp and omelette and waffle station. As well as a veriety of breakfast meats, vegetables, pastries and fruit. Every thing was excellent! My favorite was this amazing pickled cabbage dish. I am currently in the experimental phase of trying to recreate it, however it is slow going.

Our plates!

Mmmm perfect with coffee!

Pretty!

After we ate a decent amount (we kept it sane and didn't over do it), we returned to finish our wine tasting in the time we had remaining before our riding time.

We walked to the back of the back parking lot at Wilson Creek to go horse back riding. After filling our our waiver we were assigned horses. ESFSW was put on a horse named John Quincy and I was given a horse named Ranger. We were definitely given horses with completely differently personalities. JQ was only happy out front of all the other horses and going fast. Ranger was happy going slow staying in the back of the pack. So ESFSW and I didn't ride next to each other we still had a lot of fun. I did find out that Ranger who would pick up the pace to go up hill would also get really excited and pick up speed if he saw a muddy puddle to run through. It was fun no matter what!

ESFSW's horse John Quincy

The ride was over and Ranger was happy to be back so he could have dinner!

By the time we got back from the ride we had a little bit of time so we decided to go grab a glass a wine and just sit out and enjoy the beautiful afternoon on the grounds.