Team C&J
This Winery Is Permanently Closed.
Winery Rating
Located at:
Oak Mountain Winery
36522 Via Verde
Temecula, CA. 92592
Wine Club Rating
Price Range For Tasting
Oak Mountain Winery is located in the Temecula Valley AVA and is part of the larger South Coast AVA that includes Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Bernardino Counties. From a visitor’s standpoint, Temecula’s wineries have the perfect location. If you live in Orange County, they are only about an hour southeast; if you live in San Diego, they’re about an hour northeast.
Warm weather dominates the region, with moderately cool evenings impacted by Pacific Ocean winds.
Steve and Valerie Andrews love wine, but they didn’t necessarily expect to plant their own vineyards, build a winery from the ground up, and become winemakers. In fact, prior to a fateful trip to Santa Barbara wine country in the 1990s, Steve owned an auto dismantling and towing company, and Valerie was a contract painter.
While Valerie’s family did have an association with the wine world through her father’s Los Angeles wine shops, neither she nor Steve could have foreseen how successful their wine venture would become.
Their first winemaking project started in 1996 when they purchased a small 11-acre property in the Temecula hills. After consultation with enologists in Napa and Paso Robles, Steve (who is also Oak Mountain’s winemaker), planted heat-loving grapes like grenache, grenache blanc, syrah, zinfandel, mourvedre, sangiovese, and viognier.
Success came quickly for Oak Mountain, and the decision was made to expand the property to its current location on the De Portola Wine Trail. Not only does the venue host wine tastings, but it also has a Prohibition-style distillery, a wedding venue, a restaurant, and a very popular wine cave!
Steve and Valerie aren’t just known for producing some of Temecula’s best wines, they’re also known for giving back to the local community. Like so many pet owners, the couple’s dogs are near and dear to their hearts. When one of their dogs was diagnosed with a serious illness, they were shocked by how expensive treatment was. And while they could afford their dog’s treatment, they knew that many others couldn’t.
To help pets in need, Oak Mountain created For Pete’s Sake, a red blend of Counoise and Syrah. The proceeds from these bottles go directly to Steve and Valerie’s Cause Fur Paws nonprofit to fund medical expenses for diabetic pets.
One of the things that stood out at our Oak Mountain Winery tasting was the way the wine was served. When you do a traditional seated wine tasting, the table is quickly crowded with wine glasses, and there isn’t much room left for charcuterie or cheese boards, plates, or any other snacks you may want to enjoy.
Oak Mountain has solved this problem by serving their wine in a vertical “wine tree”. Sample a wine, and place the glass back on the tree. This is an interesting idea that really does the trick.
Our tasting started off with the Oak Mountain Raspberry Sparkling wine, which is a crisp sparkling wine made with a hint of raspberries. This is a sweeter sparkling wine that almost has a cotton candy taste. The wine wasn’t necessarily our cup of tea, but we could see how other palates would enjoy it.
Overall, the wines at Oak Mountain are decent. Of the Temecula wineries we’ve visited, they’re probably the best in the region.
For us, Oak Mountain’s Petite Sirah was our highest-point wine. The wine had a rich dark color, intense jammy notes, some spice, and of course, those black cherry and chocolate flavors that Petite Sirah is known for.
The tasting included:
Oak Mountain works with a ton of grape varieties besides the ones on the tasting menu. Bottles of malbec, cabernet sauvignon, Mourvedre, Pinotage, Tempranillo, and Grenache are all available to purchase. All in all, very nice wines, but we would recommend that you avoid the Raspberry Sparking. It was the first wine in the fight, and our entire table left their glasses full. We were told this is a best seller, but not our cup of tea.
We love a wine club that demonstrates the winery’s appreciation for its customers, and Oak Mountain has a wine club level for just about every level of interest. This level of accessibility is great because it doesn’t price out casual wine drinkers who are still discovering their palates and may not want to commit to a full case – or even a half case of wine when they receive club shipments.
Oak Mountain’s Wine Club membership is tiered, starting with an entry-level Bronze membership with two bottles of wine – one red and one white. Standard perks like a 20% discount on the bi-monthly wine shipment, complimentary tastings throughout the year, and a 15% discount on additional bottles are decent incentives for new wine drinkers.
From there, Oak Mountain sweetens the deal through its Gold and Platinum memberships. The former even has a 30% discount on the wine shipment and a 20% discount on additional bottles, and you can choose whether you want all red, all white, or a mix of both.
Oak Mountain Winery’s wine cave is one of the winery’s cooler features, and access to it is one of the better benefits to an Oak Mountain wine club membership. During weekend hours, members even have exclusive use of the cave for tastings when the winery is at its busiest.
For those members that really fall in love with the winery’s cave experience, the Cave Club might be worth springing for. The Cave Club requires a three-year commitment and a $4,000 membership fee. It’s a big commitment, but the perks include:
It’s a little pricey, but if you fall in love with Oak Mountain wines, there are a lot of perks to enjoy.
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