Foot Path Winery

I absolutely love coming here! Their wines are amazing (if you like red wines). The atmosphere is very mellow which I like. We love Deane, once you get to know dean he’s a great person. We have been members since 2009 :)

Forth winery in the day’s tour, we were curious about the «no frills» tasting room. As we soon learned, no frills was an overstatement. But hey, we’re adventurous and not put off by appearances. However, we chose this winery for its organic wines and soon learned that only ONE was organic. I understand that things change from year to year and publications can be out dated, but I still felt mislead.
On entering the tasting area, I was surprised by the pungent smell of cigar smoke and surprised it would be allowed when aroma is such an integral aspect of wine tasting. I was then startled to see it was the owner smoking.
On my second tasting, I tried to engage the owner in a discussion of regional wines. When he started bashing the owners of a neighboring winery, I was done and walked out, leaving three tasting tickets on the bar. There is nothing for which I can recommend this winery.

Upon first sip it is immediately apparent that the wine is slow cooked in the barrel from excessively high temps in the storage barn. 3 different varieties. All with the same issue. Undrinkable. Bummer.

I give this place 5 stars, because it was kind of a nice break from the craziness that we sometimes encounter in other large (touristy) wineries in Temecula. We are locals here, but we are moving soon, so we are trying to visit all the wineries before we leave. We stopped in on a Saturday afternoon and we were not disappointed. The tasting room is in a large building that is kinda like a barn, but we didn’t mind… it was a lovely Temecula afternoon! The gentleman behind the bar was both reserved and engaging. My husband and I both appreciate some conversation, but some servers can be over the top with their «funny» comments and too much talking. Though we aren’t huge red wine fans, we both found several wines that we really liked. We’re building a stockpile of wine to take with us when we move and there will be a couple bottles from Foot Path Winery. (They also give a free tasting to active duty military members with ID… a rare find these days in Temecula!)

This was a nice winery. The people are very friendly and the wind was very good. I loved the Reds and they even had a port. I liked the fact that they offered free tasting to people in the military. The grounds are beautiful too. I would recommend visiting this winery.

(Scale of 1 – 5, with 5 being the MOST family-​friendly and 1 being the LEAST)
Quality & Location of Parking Lot — 3.17
Quality of picnic or play area — 3.50
Quality & Cleanliness of the bathrooms — 2.00
Level of entertainment for kids — 4.00
How family-​friendly is the winery? — 4.67
How easy was it to move around with a stroller? — 4.67
OVERALL RATING — 3.67
Mommy Reviews:
«It is a rustic winery. I really enjoyed it though and the kids had fun. I put lower ratings only because it’s not as nice as it could be. Everything is a little run down. For an outhouse, it was pretty clean though. I would go back because I enjoyed a different type of winery.»
«Definitely worth checking out. Lot’s to explore. My littles had fun with all the sticks. Grounds are not maintained too well. There is a lot of prickly brush, leaves and sticks so wear close toed shoes. The kids had fun playing in the orange groves but my daughter kept getting pricklys’ in her shoes. Also the horse is NOT friendly and tried to bite. They should have a caution sign up for him. Definitely a place you need to keep eyes on your littles. We had a great time, glad we went.»
«Excellent reds and cute quaint backyard feel. Kids feel like they are in the woods and they have a horse. Only thing needs improving is the bathroom. Prices are good too!»
«The entrance road and parking lot are very close to where kids are running around. This might be a better venue to bring older kids who understand to watch for cars. Really not good for wandering, clueless toddlers.»
«The winery is super friendly. The owner mans the wine room and it’s a one man operation. The wine selection is on the limited side, they only offer reds. They tend to be earthy and are unfiltered. My favorite was the Krazy Foote blend. Visiting Foote Path is a rustic down home winery, the grounds aren’t refined, and highly developed. There are tables set out under some trees, where you can enjoy a picnic. The kids ran around, had a blast exploring, meeting the animals and buying some of their organic fruits… in season during our visit were pomegranates, lemon, limes, tangelos… and a couple others.»
«We had a fabulous experience at Foot Path with the children. Don’t expect all of the bells and whistles of the larger wineries here, but you can expect your kids to have a blast while you enjoy some of the best red wines in this region! Its rustic. You’ll want to wear your boots and make sure you use the restroom before you leave the house, but you’ll also be able to sit in their garden area while your kids enjoy all of the animals, trees to climb and plenty of space to run around in nature. They have a horse which they didn’t mind the kids petting as well as at least 3 cats roaming around. On the patio of their home which is right next to the winery they have about 10 humming bird feeders which attracts tons and tons of humming birds! One of the kids also spotting a parrot in the window. They have plenty of seating right in the middle of everything so you can easily keep an eye on your kids while you sample their amazing wines. The best part is, the owner was so welcoming to us and seemed to really appreciate us being there. Don’t miss this place if you’re wine tasting with kids in tow!»

So… I read about this winery on Temecula Wine’s page when doing some research for our trip over Thanksgiving in 2015. I jotted down «No frills. Not sure about this place.» Except we ended up going anyway, because it was one of the few that was open on Thanksgiving day. We’re in our late 20’s and up for adventure so we gave it a whirl… but when we pulled up the drive and saw it was at somebody’s house, in a barn with equipment and there were livestock nearby, we hesitated. Of course we went in anyway.
There was a couple in there, who gave us a very «Oh thank goodness someone else is here» look when we walked in. The owner was eating a steak, and walked over to us with menus. «You guys like red?» he asked. We nodded. «Good, because that’s all I got!»
Well then…
Two of us decided to do the tastings. I’m a pretty social person and I like to talk to others, so I tried to engage the owner in conversation. I asked how he got started in wine making. His story went like this: «Well, I was making it for friends and family, and pretty soon word got out and people wanted it. So I started making more. Then my wife said, ‘You should just start selling this shit,’…so here we are.»
I wish I could show you all my face’s reaction to that.
I get it, he’s a guy who uses his barn as a winery and he makes some wine because he likes to do it and why not. But he’s also a business owner. Maybe I just have high expectations?
Either way, any other attempt to talk to him was shut down. I’d ask a question, he answered (so at least he was polite), but it was short and cut off. We finished our wine rather quickly, paid and hustled out of there. I like to experience things, so when I’m tasting wine, I want to know about the wine, about the person who makes it, why they do what they do. I didn’t mind the barn, or that it was off the beaten path… I just have a really hard time wrapping my head around how they keep customers. Oh, and the wine? It was okay.
It wasn’t the worst experience of my life, but it wasn’t the best. I just wish I’d been better prepared for the person behind the wine, I guess.

The setting is old, run down and dirty. The winemaker is not a welcoming person but he is an interesting character.
The wine is not good. It has a brown color and smells like cigar smoke.

This guy is really judgmental so if you want someone to be an asshole to you. Then please go to this winery with shitty wine. And fuck this place

We love visiting the ‘Ma and Pa’ smaller wineries when spending a day out in wine country, where their passion is proudly on display and infectious, and you have great chats with the real people behind the wine, get some stories and a real feel for the blood, sweat and tears they pour into their work. It enhances the art of tasting.
The chap behind Foot Path though cares not for such trivialities. He barely said a word, and when we tried to engage him on any topic he shot each attempt down. Not rude exactly, but far from warm and welcoming. Feels like he doesn’t enjoy opening to and engaging with the public, in which case perhaps he shouldn’t be.
Wine itself is okay-​to-​good. Decent range, all reds. Lucky for us we started here, as later wineries around Temecula were vastly superior, and would have been disappointing to finish on this note.

Where to begin?
I like small, unpretentious wineries and don’t need a red carpet rolled out. (It’s one thing I like about Caparone in Paso Robles.) But this was like entering the twilight zone.
I was in the area with my mother and decided to check out some Temecula wineries. Foot Path was the first. And the worst. By far. The owner is not just rude, dismissive, and uninterested, but seems to have an almost radiant contempt for guests.
But I tried his wines. All of them seemed cooked, extracted, and monolithic, thought a couple were tolerable to decent — the Cab Franc seems like the stems were tossed in the bin which gives it a familiar «green bell pepper» tone that is familiar to Loire red drinkers of old. (But you still get the dominating overripe nearly cooked fruit.)
I should note now that when I saw that the first bottle he was about to pour was from several vintages ago, I was immediately intrigued and asked him if they held wine back for years before release. He grunted «made too much wine». The rest of the tasting — in a barn without temperature control — all fell into place. Imagine wine in barrels or bottles cooking and going through wide temperature swings for years. Hey, maybe that’s not the situation at all. Maybe the wines are aged with decent temperature control and then bottled and stored in good cellar conditions. But boy they didn’t taste like that.
Bad attitude. Overpriced. Sub-​par wines.
Not to get all squishy new-​agey (which I’m not), but even though too much wine press can wax on about how the «passion» and «love» and care” of the owners is in each bottle, in this case I felt like one really can taste the personality of the owner in the bottle.

If you love Reds this is the place! We were looking for a low-​key place that excepted dogs and had a fabulous wines. We definitely scored on this one! Definitely a hidden gem. Everyone was more than helpful and very friendly. Extra thanks to ladies that attended to us and our pups (schipperke’s) We will definitely be back!

This place has the rare ability to not just disappoint but to actually make you angry. The owner acts as though he is bothered that you had the audacity to enter his shed and ask for tastes of his wine. Rude and condescending from the beginning, I believe the low point was when, after he used a knife to clean his fingernails, he bit some off and spit them on the ground while he was attending to us. Unreal. Just avoid this place please.

This is a small winery off the beaten path. If you are looking for a fancy tasting room go somewhere else. If you are looking for great red wines and a rustic feel this is it. I like to support the small wineries especially with great wine. Ended up leaving with a great bottle of Cabernet. Check this place out.

This is a small, rustic family owned place (already a plus for me!) They only serve reds, so if you like sweet white or sparkling wine, skip Foot Path.
This was our first stop on our Valentine’s Day celebration and we were the only patrons present at the time we visited. The owner was attentive but a bit gruff and had the area behind the bar plastered with Republican-​themed stickers and signs, which was a turnoff. We were interested in buying some fruit but it was pretty much all sold out. After our tasting we got a glass of wine and sat outside to drink it. We didn’t like the wine that much so we did not purchase a bottle.
We enjoyed the rustic atmosphere and petted the cats we saw meandering by (there are a ton.) Tasting is $ 10 for six tastes and you can bring your own food here, but the facilities for sitting outside aren’t well maintained so if you plan to have a picnic lunch save it for another winery.
(I’m not sure why «Winey Moms T» expects a business whose one and only product is sold to patrons 21 and over, to have family friendly facilities and activities for children. Perhaps Winey Moms was drinking too much wine when she got the «brilliant» idea to bring her little kids to a bunch of wineries.)

We went for the promise of organic wine and a «no frills» tasting room. We were the only people there (Tuesday at noon), and the owner/​winemaker couldn’t have been less interested in being engaging or informative.
Me: «What’s the difference between the ’10 Syrah and the ’11 Syrah?»
Him: «They’re incredibly different.»
Ooooookay.
He asked if we wanted to share a tasting, so we did, and then *enjoyed* the smallest pours ever — a half-​sip for each of us
The wine was decent. And I don’t mind rustic (though I wonder why they wouldn’t use some room dividers to hide the random storage — why am I seeing boogie boards?). But a business owner should never act as if he’s doing his customers a favor by serving them.

Foot Path… off the beaten path… if you are used to nice tasting rooms and that is what you want do not go there. Their tasting room is in a rustic barn. Their wines are OK, not very good if you have a sophisticated pallet. They also have the same food for the WOW in November every year.

We really wanted to like the wines here. We prefer wines that use organic grape, or bio dynamically farmed grapes, or SIP, Lodi rules, etc. so we were excited to try the wines here advertised as organically grown grapes. Unfortunately, we were extremely disappointed. The fact that the tasting room is a barn is no big deal. The owner was pleasant as well. However, the wines were absolutely horrible. Every wine was off colored and well past their peak. Thank goodness we had a two for one coupon. While wine is somewhat subjective, this was just all bad. Not recommended at all.

I give them 2 stars only because they have decent wines. I have to begin by saying if you, as a business owner, have a problem with drunks or even just people in general… maybe, just maybe owning a winery and tasting room is not your calling in life.
The owner and wine maker seemed like he did not want to be bothered. He was not friendly at all, barely answered our questions, and was only talkative when he was complaining (about the City of Temecula, Riverside County, drunk people, etc.) There was a whole big endless list of things that pissed him off. And on top of that, the pours were tiny!
I don’t care so much that the tasting room is in a old barn, but they didn’t even try to make the place look quaint or charming. Most of the barn is used as storage for an assortment of random things. It is basically like tasting in someone’s old storage unit.
Honestly, the best part of the whole experience was the winery doggie who was very welcoming. I say skip this place. There are far superior places right around the corner with good wines and no grumpiness!

Do you like reds? Good. That’s what they do.
They also have horses, fresh produce for sale, and not an ounce of pretension.
We bought a bottle as a memento of our weekend in Temecula.