“Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!” and Wine Tasting - Temecula, CA

So here it is, the eve before my first day of a new school (or job, but I’m having the same sort of ‘first day of school’ jitters) and it’s raining outside and I just don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve had the last 11 days off of work….of any work. I put in my two weeks notice at my old job but since I’m going to a ‘competitor’ they had me work three days of the two weeks and sent me on my way. After being at my old job for over 3 years (my longest professional job to date) my head wasn’t ready to leave so suddenly and I certainly didn’t prepare myself for 11 days of doing whatever the hell I wanted. Believe it or not, I’m a bit of a planner. I spent the first day of my unplanned vacation just sitting on my ass wondering what the hell to do for the next 10 days.

Kevin was thankfully with me for my unplanned vacation. He (unfortunately of course) had knee surgery on my very last day of work. Due to the pain and swelling, the doctors didn’t let him come back to work until last Friday. Although Kevin is in a lot of pain and does a lot of ‘ow ow ow’-ing at unexpected times (and expected times when I slap his knee for being cheeky forgetting that it’s the bad knee) it’s been nice having someone to do rounds of “What do you want to do?” “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” with.

By the first Saturday the only thing I could come up with to do with Kevin’s limited ability was go to Temecula. I’ve wanted to go to Vegas for awhile but since Kevin detests gambling I haven’t been able to convince him to go. Temecula is about 80 miles away and has a casino, but it also has loads of wineries. I had my in. I booked the hotel for Wednesday and laid out the wineries we were going to go to, including 2 for 1 tasting coupons for each one and made sure the casino wasn’t too far away from the hotel and had a couple coupons for lunch if we got there early enough. Like I said, I’m a planner. Unfortunately I’m not a ‘remember’-er and forgot about my call-in jury duty before I booked the un-refundable hotel room.


Every day before Wednesday I called in at my needed times with crossed fingers and toes that I wouldn’t actually have to go in and serve. By Tuesday I got the recording that I had to call in on Wednesday at 5 PM. I figured that even if I called and had to come in on Thursday morning, we could still go.

So go we did. We left at 10 AM Wednesday morning thinking that we would run into traffic on the 91 (there’s ALWAYS traffic on the 91) but surprisingly it wasn’t so bad. We were checked into our hotel (the handicapped room again which Kevin swears is what happens when you check into a hotel too early) by noon. Oh, I forgot to mention that due to all the billboards for Pechenga (which is the casino in Temecula) on the drive there, Kevin was constantly saying “Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!” I’d be talking about something serious, like global warming or the new shirt I just bought, and all of a sudden he’d go, “Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!” Then I’d mention that I might have to pull over to a gas station to go to the bathroom and he’d go, “Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!”

“What would you like to eat for lunch?”

“Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!”

“It’s raining, but it might clear up later.”

“Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!”

“Aren’t those mountains pretty?”

“Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!”

“How’s your knee feeling?”

“Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!”

“Can you please stop saying ‘Pechanga’?”

“Pe-CHANG…..oh, ok.”

…..

“OK, you can say it.”

“No, it’s alright.”

“No, go ahead. I know you want to.”

“I don’t have to say it.”

“But you want to. Go ahead, it’s alright.”

……

“Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!”

After checking into the hotel and grabbing a bit of lunch at a little Mexican place (this side note is for Kevin only as he would be the only one to get the joke: “Do you have any hot sauce?” “Yes.” “……” “Can we have some?”) we headed out to the first winery.

They knew Kevin was coming...

Most of the wineries in Temecula are located off of Rancho California Avenue. There’s a few more off of side roads, but since we figured that we wouldn’t be able to go any more than six of them, the offerings on Rancho Cal Ave. were just fine. Plus, I had the coupons.

The first place we stopped at was La Cereza. The winery was dead which I chalked up to it being 1 o clock on a Wednesday. The bartender at La Cereza had zero personality and I was starting to wonder what the day had in store for us. Typically when you go for a tasting, the bartender will explain where the grapes for that particular wine comes from, the flavors in it, how many barrels were produced, so on and so forth. This guy poured the wine and just stared at us almost as if he was expected us to explain the wine to him. It was a bit unnerving. I typically like to savor the wines (this is also a good trick so you don’t get too hammered on wine tastings) but we started slamming the wines down like we were in a Spring Break body shot competition.

The next winery, Maurice Car’rie was a lot better. The tasting room reminded me of an old farmhouse with a bartender just as ancient. But he was friendly and explained the wine like he was supposed to. I was tempted to hand him an application for employment at La Cereza.




We ended up going to four more wineries, Falkner, Miramonte, Callaway, and Mount Palomar. Mount Palomar ended up being our favorite. One of the best things about wine tasting is striking up conversations with the groups of people at the tasting with you who are basically out having fun and wasting the day away just like you are. Because it was Wednesday, we really didn’t see that many people. Most of the people we did see weren’t really interested in talking to us. Except at Mount Palomar. Not only were the wines delicious, the bartender friendly and gracious on a few free pours, but we ended up talking with a couple from New York. The husband was a New Yorker who gave a lengthy speech on why he doesn’t like people from Long Island and the wife was actually from Trinidad and was definitely getting knackered on all the wine. It was a great time and I would recommend Mount Palomar to anyone who asked. They also had a fantastic patio which I’m sure in the summer is awesome to hang out on.




After the wineries, we ended up going to a place called Aloha because the bartender at Mount Palomar mentioned they had a great happy hour. And they did! Three beers, and two very large appetizers were $21. The New York couple must have had the same idea because they showed up at Aloha shortly after we did. We hadn’t seen them in a couple hours and by this time the little wife from Trinidad was hammered. It was pretty funny.

We reluctantly left the New Yorkers to go to “Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!” After losing all my money there, I wish we had stayed at Aloha. I shouldn’t say that…I lost the $40 I came in with, then lost Kevin’s $40, then won $140 dollars at a video slot machine in the bar waiting for Kevin to come out from the bathroom. I gave Kevin $100 then lost the $40, then got $60 from the ATM (as Kevin wouldn’t give me any of the $100…smart man) and lost that too. So (let me add that up)….I guess I lost $40 when it was all said and done and Kevin lost nothing. I guess that isn’t so bad. We still should have stayed at Aloha.

After “Pe-CHANG-gaaaaa!” we grabbed some to-go food from Denny’s and went back to the hotel. It was an awesome time and I think for the close proximately it is to us, we’ll probably go back to Temecula again soon. Oh, and call-in jury duty? Yeah, I completely forgot to call 5 PM on Wednesday. I remembered at 6 PM Thursday night…sweating bullets I called the number and found out that my group never had to come in and they were since released from calling in. Wooo!