YOU CAN ORDER A GLASS OF WINE... at a restaurant, but ordering up the perfect wine-tasting day in January is a trickier bit of business. Basically? You have to luck into sunshiny weather, the kind of not-quite-balmy, highly blissful temperatures traditionally delivered by a spring day. But someone, clearly, ordered up the perfect weekend for the Temecula Valley Annual Barrel Tasting Event, for the final Saturday and Sunday of January 2018 look to be as lovely as days come. The only thing to do now? Find your designated driver, or driving service, and head for the area's wineries over one of their biggest weekends of the year. It's "... a self-guided taste and tour of Temecula Valley," and there are packages available through Grapeline Wine Tours. Also? Winery Hopper is there, too, to give you a ride, so look into your transportation before deciding which of the 18 wineries you'd like to call upon. A ticket to the event itself? It's $78, plus a small fee, for a...
SATURDAY PASSPORT, and the same price goes for Sunday passports, too. The designated driver passports are $48 each, plus that small fee, and, you bet, food is included on that one. If you've got your driver lined up, and your day, or days, what can you expect? Prepare for "... unfinished barrel and tank wine samples, as well as finished and newly released wines" at the big event, which only circles around once per calendar. Do note that if you decide to purchase your ticket there, once you arrive in the T.V., the price'll be a bit higher, so buy before you go. Eager for the not-so-wintry sunshine above and the sunshine in a glass? Your dates are Saturday, Jan. 27 and Sunday, Jan. 28, and the hours? Eleven in the a.m. to 4 in the afternoon.
