The Grapeline Signature Series Wine Tour Baily Vineyard & Carol's Restaurant - Temecula Wine Country

When my wife suggested we go wine tasting for our anniversary many years ago, it took a lot of convincing on her part for me to agree. Up to this point in my life I had only one experience with wine. It consist of drinking two jugs of cheap white wine from the gas station which led to a hangover that I believe would only be matched by driving your car over your own head a few times. When the "touring wine country" discussion came up the images of stuffy Victorian decorated dark rooms filled with turtleneck sweaters and quite discussions of oak barrels and summer homes popped into my head. If you have ever been wine tasting before then you know how really off I was....


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The first wine tour we went on was through Grapeline Wine County Shuttle. While there are now many different wine country shuttle services, Grapeline was one of the first. The driver's with Grapeline just don't drive you around wine country while you get sloshed, but instead the experience is like visiting with old friends. Every anniversary, we have had the same driver (Ray is awesome!) and every anniversary we visit new vineyards and have a new experience every year. If you are thinking of visting wine country, hands down book a tour with Grapeline. Consider this is coming from someone that wasn't interested in wine at all on my first tour and I am now booking our trips and doing the whole "countdown" to our yearly visits!

Ok...the point of this post? Fast forward six years. My wife saw a contest on the Grapeline's facebook page for a trip on one of their new signature series wine tours. She posted a photo from one of our trips (a photo she took I must add...) and to our surprise...we won! I had no idea what the trip consist of, but knew we were getting to go on a Grapeline wine tour on Sunday! We got a sitter and drove up to Temecula on Sunday morning. I am a huge fan of ambition. I love seeing the drive and love that people have for the businesses they run. It is why I always get my coffee from the neighborhood coffee shop instead of Starbucks and order pizza from the local pizzera instead of Pizza Hut. It was to my surprise that when we got on our shuttle, sitting in the back row was John and Kim, the owners of Grapeline! I think it speaks volumes about a company that the owners would take time out of their weekend want to see how their customers view their tours. Not that it would be any different, but getting to interact with them and hear how they started Grapeline and their devotion to grow their customers experience made me a Grapeline customer for life. I mean....just look at the start of our tour, do we not look super excitedly happy?

The tour that we got to be a part of on Sunday is a new idea and kind of a behind the scenes wine tour. While we all enjoy getting to visit the plethora of winery's in Temecula, the signature series tour is dedicated to just one winery. On our tour we got to stop at the Baily winery and vineyard. Greeting us at the door was owner Phil Baily. I always enjoy watching someone talk about their craft and Phil is a true artist. Baily has been producing wine for over 25 years. While it would be easy for someone to buy grapes and hire out production help, Phil finds it important to be a part of every step of the wine making production. From growing the grapes, creating the wine, and to even the bottling of the wine, Phil has a hand in every step. That dedication shows in the final product. Just like with about anything, the craftsmanship for doing the small things that lead to the better end product really shows. You know when you buy a bottle of wine from Baily, you are getting a wine that that maker is truly proud of and not just someone throwing fermented grapes into a bottle.

After a walk through of their factory (which isn't open to the public) we then sat down to five wine tastings of their Mertiage selections from 2004,2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. ( the 04 was hands down the best glass of wine I have ever tasted.)

Our next stop after visting the Baily factory was a stop for lunch at Carol's (Phil's wife) and then some tastings at the Baily tasting room. For the food.....ahh man the food! The passion you taste in their wine is even more so in the food at Carol's! I could go on and on about how great it tasted, but its really not going to do it justice. If you are anywhere close to Temecula, trust me, make it a point to make Carol's a stop. The filet mignon sandwich below? I could have eaten three of them they were so good. Just posting the photo below of it makes me want to pick up the wife and head up tonight.