Wine Weekend...

SO.

The boy took me on a fabulous weekend at South Coast Winery. Yes I feel spoiled. Yes I feel like a princess. Yes I wanted to cry when I realized no boy (Not even the bastard ex when we were married...) has ever taken me somewhere like this. He planned it. He planned everything. Saturday morning at 8am. Yes. 8am. He picked me up, after trying to wake up my medicated haze, red-eyed and blurried with some Starbucks coffee, we hit the road to Temecula. We arrived quite early (Shocking). We couldnt check into our room yet, so we wandered around until 10:30am when we had a winery tour scheduled. It was warm out, nice dry desert heat. The winery is beautiful. I tasted some of the red grapes...yuummmmmy. Took some photos. We purused the gift shop smelling the different candles and debating which scents were ok to own if you were a man.

We check in for our tour. They slap bright orange wristbands on us and Anna - our bubbly, happy, excited tour guide leads us out. She loved her job. Some interesting tidbits about the winery:

• All the posts they have outside the place are built with the wood that was burned up in Julian. The wood is quite lovely, the burn marks actually make it beautiful and I couldnt help but love the fact that instead of wasting these posts this dude decided to use them!


• If you notice roses usually planted around vineyards it is due to the fact that if something fucked up happens in the ground the roses will be affected 1st - you'll catch it and protect your vines. Poor roses!


• The owner of this winery specially handpicked the matresses used in each of the villas.


• Southcoast Winery has 2 dudes that specialize in Sparkling Wines.

At the end of the tour is a wine tasting. I'm being careful and downing my water in between tastes due to the fact that I'm on my last day of antibiotics. His favorite is 2006 Elevation Sauvignon Blanc. I actually dont really have a favorite. We tasted 2 whites and 2 reds. I'm not a huge white fan and the reds were just alright. The other white was 2007 Gewurztraminer (Say that 5 times fast). Very sweet. The other was Romanza. This was a bizzare tasting red. It almost tasted chocloaty...but not sweet. Then the 2004 Wild Horse Peak Cabernet Sauvignon. I'm not a huge Cab fan but it was decent. We were also given cheeses and some fruit. Not a huge fan of these particular types of cheeses, but the fruit was yummy! After we're done they give us 4 wine glasses to keep and we head out.

After our tour we went into town to pick up some things, and got our call to check into our room. We walk in - its not clean. WTF? I start to think we may have the wrong room. No big, we change and decide to chill by the pool until the room is ready. Its hot out. The pool is nice. I actually go in! The boy is in it pretty much the entire time. He admits he's a pool whore. There's classical music being played around the pool area. The water is actually salt water! I lay out, doze, read, relax. We head back to our room. Keys dont work. I knew it!!!!! There was a mix up. They gave us the wrong room. The little fella on the golf cart comes out and opens the wrong room so we can get out stuff, and we move. We were a tad miffed at the fact that there were no apologies or anything and it was handled a little f-ed up. But whatevs. I'm too sunkissed and happy to care.

We walk into our VILLA. There are 4 villas attached to make one lovely area. In the middle of the areas are gardens, benches and a fountain. Surrounding the villas in the back is vineyards. Inside the ceilings are high vaulted things, amazingly built. There's wine vines painted above the 2 queen size beds and above the giant oak looking front door. There's a fireplace with a fantastic pewter looking wine picture above it. Our patio is filled with vineyards and flowers and a little table for 2. We get white grapes to pick and taste. Too tart for me. The bathroom is SICK. Huge and I mean HUGE jacuzzi tub. If I'm sitting in it, just my head peers over the side. Large shower with 2 shower heads and a bench. 2 sinks. Green tea scented shampoos, conditioners and body wash that smells oooooh so yummy. We also get a complimentary bottle of wine. The boy is thrilled because its a white. We enjoy our time in the room... ;)

7pm is dinner. We get a bit dolled up and head over. At this point I feel pretty confident I can drink a full glass or two. I order a Pinot Noir. AWESOME. 2nd glass was a Sangiovese - ok but not as good as what I've had (Of course I dont write the names of these down...). The boy orders 2 of his fave whites. Our appetizer is Seared Tuna Sashimi. Now - I have to say with all honesty - this is THE BEST tuna sashimi I have ever had in my entire life. We almost nixed dinner and ordered 3 pounds of that! He had salad, I had soup - some of the best french onion ever. Dinner - he had salmon with some kind fantastic white sauce and I had a seafood pasta filled with halibut, shrimp, scallops and goodness. After hours of good conversation our fat, happy full asses rolled back to our room. We enjoyed it more. Then passed right the fuck out. The air conditioner kept me up most of the night, but thats my curse of being a light sleeper. Otherwise I have to say - bomb diggity to the dude who hand picked the mattresses!

Sunday morning, I make us coffee, we chitty chat and I'm off for my 9am 1 hour hot stone massage he scheduled for me. I walk into the spa and I'm greeted by a friendly woman who sends me upstairs to the woman's locker room. Here I change into a fluffy fuzzy robe and am told I have access to the spa, sauna, steam room and all the stuff they have (Which is every tolietrie essential you can think of!). I head up another floor where I await my massage. A lovely little woman comes out and calls my name. The massage is nice. I should start telling massage folk that they can be a little hard on me, she was relaxing but it was a bit soft for my taste. The hot rocks were super cool! After the massage they give you a glass of wine (I love this place) and tell me to help myself to the bowl of fruit. I grab an apple and my wine and wander out to the balcony to where I can look out over the pool. I wave at the boy, then head back to the locker room take a shower (honestly just to use all thier cool shit!) and head to the pool. Sadly I couldnt stay and play because I was scheduled to be in Laguna at 2pm to shoot the PSA.

We take our 2 free tasting cards to the tasting room after we check out and taste 4 wines each. The 2004 Wild Horse Peak Meritage is Amazing - we get a bottle. (Well, he gets one for me...) We talk to the gal - he joins the wine club. Yup. We're members of SouthCoast Winery Wine Club. Talk about a perfect, relaxing couple of days!!!!!!!!