Europa Village nears completion on winery…
Europa Village nears completion on winery Bolero in Temecula wine country
Bolero, a new winery set to open in April at Europa Village, is pictured here. The new winery will be one of three Europa Village will comprise in coming years (Courtesy of Europa Village)
By Alex Groves | agroves@scng.com | The Press-Enterprise
PUBLISHED: February 27, 2020 at 9:43 a.m. | UPDATED: February 27, 2020 at 11:30 a.m.
In just a few months, people will be able to nosh on tapas, sample wines with names such as Libido Blanco and Verdelho and listen to Spanish music — and they won't be in the Iberian countryside, but rather Temecula Valley Wine Country.
Winery Europa Village is eyeing April for completion of Bolero, its Spanish winery. The 27,000-square-foot Andalusian-style building will feature two tasting rooms, a full-service restaurant serving tapas and 10 casitas. There will also be spaces for weddings and events.
The opening of the Spanish winery is part of a larger plan by Europa Village's owners to eventually turn into three separate and distinct wineries under the Europa Village banner — one for Spanish wine, one for Italian wine and one for French wine, with Bolero being the first of those wineries to open.
"Basically when you walk into Bolero it will feel like you're walking into a winery in Spain itself," said Dan Stephenson, managing partner of Europa Village.
Pictured is Bolero, a winery at Europa Village in Temecula Valley Wine Country set to open around April. The Spanish-themed winery will be one of three that Europa Village comprises. (Courtesy of Europa Village)
Europa Village currently has one winery tasting room which it dubs "The Prelude" and that tasting room offers all of Europa Village's varietals, but once Bolero opens, Europa Village's Spanish wines will leave The Prelude and move to the new space.
Jason Maciel, a spokesman for the winery, said that when Bolero opens, guests will have the option to purchase individual passports for a tasting either at The Prelude or Bolero or may purchase combined passports to sample the wine at both.
An individual passport for either of the locations (which gives guests six tastes of wine) is $25 and a combined passport (which gives guests 12 tastes between the two locations) is $40.
Premium tasting passports, which give guests eight tastes for one winery or 16 tastes for both combined will be $30 and $50, respectively.
The full-service restaurant will seat about 150 people with indoor and outdoor dining areas, Stephenson said, and include a tapas bar and serve craft beer.
There also be 10 Spanish-themed casitas where guests will be able to stay with feature a patio area with a six-foot-tall wall for privacy in addition to the indoor room.
Completed a few months later will be the Vienza wine cave, a 7,300-square-foot wine cave which will serve not only as a place for guests to sample wines, but also as a wedding and event venue. The wine cave will eventually become part of the Italian phase if Europa Village once it's completed.
The long-term vision
After Bolero is up and running, the winery will turn its eye to opening its Italian winery, Vienza, and French winery, C'est La Vie. Europa aims to begin construction and complete those wineries as part of additional phases in the coming years. Europa is currently working on securing roughly $23 million for Vienza.
The decision to turn Europa into three different wineries has been part of a larger plan for Stephenson since he acquired the property in the mid-2000s. He opened the tasting room, The Prelude, in 2011, but had long wanted to create a series of distinct, themed experiences similar to what places such as Las Vegas and Disneyland might offer.
"What made these two tourist attractions very attractive is they give their guests a lot of variety so we sort of came up with the idea 'Wow, why don't we sort of duplicate what Vegas has done successfully or for that matter what Disneyland has done successfully,'" he said.
Stephenson said that in the same way that you might visit Adventureland or Tomorrowland in Disneyland, you can visit the Spanish- or Italian-themed wineries at Europa.
Naushad Huda, founder of wine website ilikethisgrapressenterprise.com, said dividing tasting experiences by region is unique, but the idea offering multiple tasting experiences at the same facility is not unusual to hear about. He used Napa-based Beaulieu Vineyard as an example, noting that the winery has separate tasting rooms for its higher-tier library collection and its more standard wines.
He said that dividing up the experiences can make it so that wineries can draw in a greater net of people because not everyone is at the same knowledge level or looking for the same experience when they go to taste wine.
Huda said that while his interest may lie in trying a rare wine that he can't get on shelves that he's never tried, that's not a universal experience.
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"Some people, like for example my wife, she is absolutely not interested in sitting in a stuffy library room, where the person behind the person pouring is being very uber geeky about the style of the wine, the land — you know, very kind of nerdy stuff — she's not interested in that," Huda said. "She's more interested in being in an atmosphere or environment where people are much more casual and having a more open, fun time — where the wine isn't the focus but the experience of being there and being with the people that you're with is the focus."
Huda said segmenting experiences can also help in leading guests to a particular label for a winery. Creating a separate experience for a particular type of wine can increase its exposure and brand recognition.
Stephenson noted that the increasing demand for Temecula wines and the millions of potential visitors from other parts of Southern California was what spurred him to embark on the three winery concept.
"The idea of creating a tourist attraction like this was at the right place at the right time," Stephenson said.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the expected completion of the Vienza wine cave.
Alex Groves | Entertainment Reporter
Alex Groves writes about casinos for the entertainment team at the Southern California News Group. Alex graduated in 2015 with his bachelor's degree from Cal State Fullerton, where he majored in print journalism and minored in radio-tv-film. He started his first full-time gig later that year as a breaking news reporter for The Press-Enterprise but has also written stories on arts programs at local high schools, dining and events. In his free time, Alex enjoys hiking and traveling. A craft beer enthusiast, Alex likes to bring back an IPA as a souvenir from every new place he travels.
agroves@scng.com
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