Winery Spotlight: Get To Know… Monte de Oro

 

The Story

“Vines, Wine, Peo­ple” – that was the prin­ci­ple when a group of wine-loving investors from across Amer­ica, South Africa and the United King­dom got together to found Monte De Oro Win­ery in 2002. This beautiful Rancho California winery and vineyard uses a com­bi­na­tion of 21st cen­tutry inno­va­tion and centuries-old tra­di­tion in an environmentally-responsible approach to grow­ing its grapes and mak­ing qual­ity Temecula wine.

 

The Wines

Monte de Oro produces wines true to the vari­etal and regional characteristics of Temecula Valley. The winery grows more than a dozen different grape varietals, including Caber­net Franc, Mer­lot, Viog­nier, Zin­fan­del, Pinot Gris, Chardon­nay, Sauvi­gnon Blanc, and Mus­cat Canelli; along with Tem­pranillo, Petite Ver­dot, Mal­bec, Petite Syrah, Grenache, Mourve­dre, and Cinsault.

Monte de Oro owns and operates four Temecula vineyards: Vista del Monte, DePortola, Galway and a newer forth vineyard. In all, Monte De Oro Win­ery has a total of 72 acres of vine­yards and are proud to harvest estate-grown grapes for wine production.

Sixty-six per­cent of Monte De Oro’s grapes are red and thirty-four percent white. This pro­vides a broad array of qual­ity wines for Monte De Oro Win­ery while also reflect­ing the founding group’s per­sonal wine preference.

To learn more about Monte de Oro wines, visit the online wine store here.

 

Sustainable Grape-Growing

Monte De Oro is com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able grape-growing and wine-making, from the vineyards to the winery facility. Instead of rely­ing on the high energy con­sump­tion required for an above-ground wine bar­rel facil­ity, Monte De Oro exca­vated a 9,000 sq. ft. base­ment below ground, to uti­lize the nat­ural envi­ron­ment and aes­thet­ics of the build­ing struc­ture in order to main­tain a proper, con­sis­tent tem­per­a­ture and con­stant humid­ity. This dra­mat­i­cally reduces the need for elec­tric­ity needed in an above-ground facility.

To cap­i­tal­ize on the sunny locale, Monte De Oro has also made plans to incor­po­rate into its site design (park­ing lot and even­tual crush pad) instal­la­tion of solar pan­els to allow for solar-generated elec­tric­ity in the near future.

 

The Tasting Room

The tasting room at Monte de Oro has a sophis­ti­cated and ele­gant ambiance. Visitors can enjoy the view of the bar­rel cel­lar from above through the glass-floored tast­ing room; and the 180 degree panoramic view of Temec­ula Wine Coun­try from the out­side patio.

Stan­dard Tast­ing — 6 Tastes
Mon­day through Fri­day $12
Sat­ur­day and Sun­day $14

Black Label Tast­ing — 6 Stan­dard Tastes plus 3 Black Label Tastes
Mon­day through Fri­day $18
Sat­ur­day and Sun­day $20

The tast­ing room is open 7 days a week, 10am to 5pm. For more information on tastings and tours, click here.

 

Events

Monte de Oro Winery always offers unique and exciting winery events! Click here for their full events calendar.