Milan Vineyards - Toganga Triad - 2008

Creating wine - the dream can be accomplished at the Camarillo Custom Crush Winery in Ventura County. Imagine walking into this crushpad and discussing your vision for your ideal wine with the winemaker. He suggests where to purchase grapes and reviews the best process of barreling with you, and in months to a year, your wine is ready for bottling with your own custom label! Best of all, it's all done at this Winery for you.

What I admire about this crushpad is that it promotes wine created from local grapes (Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu, and Topanga Canyon). Many new wineries are using this venue to get their labels off the ground until they can afford their own locations for barreling.

As you walk in the the Crush Winery, you may taste a variety of wines that are produced here.

We came across the Milan Vineyards' Topanga Triad, which was inspiring, complex, and flavorful. 65% Syrah and 30% Grenache exudes a lot of fruit with a nice round-off of earthiness, provided by the 5% Mourvedre, to finish off the taste. At $18 a bottle, we purchased 2 because we knew it would not be conveniently, readily available elsewhere.

Our local wines need more maturing, promoting, and aging but I'm proud of the direction they're heading.

Galleano - "Beaver Run Ranch" Syrah - Mira Loma (Rancho Cucamonga)

It's wonderful to have found a reliable, reasonably priced winery here in Southern California. Galleano Winery is a historic landmark in Rancho Cucamonga, and if you're looking for great red wines under $20 that are NOT mass produced, make the trip, taste (you get up to 5 free), and purchase wines to bring home or to give as unique gifts. Galleano's reds are excellent and can only be purchased at the winery.

One thing people do not know is that Cucamonga vinyards sell their grapes to Temecuala wineries. Temecuala's vines are fairly new, so when they feature bottles as "Old Vine" and mark up the price, check the location - it'll probably say "Cucamonga Valley." Why is this significant to know? Because you can get these prestigious "Old Vine" wines directly from Galleano Winery for about half the price!

One that particularly stood out was their Syrah (retail $9.75). Beautiful dark red, rich color. A dusty nose that reminds me of a cellar. Overly ripe red fruit, that some would refer to as "jammy", but I would describe it more as "mature" because the fruit, while present, is not overbearing. Finally, a subtle oaky finish that provides a nice contrast to the fruit.

I couldn't stop pouring myself glass after glass. It just drank so easily and pleased my senses with every sip. My hands did manage to let go of the stem and onto this keyboard so I could blog about it...

Galleano Winery

4231 Wineville Avenue
Mira Loma, CA 91752-1412

google directions