Wine Tasting in Temecula #4 - Bailey Meritage Library!

As our day of wine tasting progressed with our Flame the Vines weekend, we headed to Baily Winery for our third stop. Phil Baily is awesome... one of my personal favorite winemakers in Temecula whom I respect immensely for his tireless work in keeping Temecula wine country protected from housing development take-over! At the end of this post, I'm including the text from an article I wrote on Phil for Inland Empire Magazine, if you read it, you'll discover his winery is one of the iconic gems of Temecula.

And now about the vertical tasting we did...

Let's Taste!

Baily Winery is in the process of completing a custom tasting room for library wines only. This tasting is conducted at his wine making facility that is offsite from the tasting room. It was awesome tasting this vertical line up of his library Meritage (Bordeaux Style) blends...

2004 -2008

This tasting was class all the way... he even had a little plate of celery for palate cleansing, roast beef for tannin balancing, and bread just because...

The Tasting Set-Up

The library room wasn't completed yet, so Phil set us up amidst his barrels... a fantastic setting....

Phil - "COME ON - I'm thirsty for more WINE!

We all gathered around the table and Phil and his assistant poured the entire flight so we could compare. He then offered us all suggestions on how to best enjoy the tasting through the classic site, smell, taste, and compare process...

Busy at Work

Phil and the Flamers... 

Can you tell by the empty glasses we had a great tasting?

Jake took this cool picture of some of his tank tools... 

All kinds of things for winemaking

And his tank room is beautiful; very state-of-the-art facility...

Jake got to go up on the catwalk for this picture

Thanks Phil for such a fantastic tasting with all your amazing library wines... we feel so honored!

Phil Bailey

And here's the copy of the article I did on Phil for Inland Empire Magazine:

Temecula Wine Country Icon – Phil Baily

If you love a big, bold, elegant, complex red wine with a silky mouth feel, and a smooth finish, you’ll love Baily Winery. If you have great respect for a man committed to preserving Temecula wine country’s charm, culture and quality, you’ll love Phil Baily.

Phil, and his wife Carol, with sons Chris and Patrick, have been making wine in Temecula since 1986. When Baily Winery first opened its doors, it was the eighth winery in Temecula’s infant wine country. The original Baily tasting room was on Pauba Road, in 1998 Baily Winery moved to its current tasting room location on Rancho California Road. Phil defines his winemaking philosophy as direct and simple: “We are hands-on artists, we don’t hand off our winemaking for someone else to do for us.” He goes on to explain: “The Baily Winery production crew is my son Patrick, and myself, it’s that simple.” Finally he notes:  “All our wines are made exclusively from estate grown grapes.”

Phil’s approach to winemaking can be classified as Old World; he uses half new and half used French oak. The wine goes into barrels where it sits totally undisturbed for 18 months.  It is then pulled from the barrels, blended and adjusted according to Phil’s standards, and put back in the barrels for an additional twelve months before bottling.  All Baily red wines are four years old before release, except the Meritage released after five years. With few exceptions, Baily wines are French Bordeaux style; Cabernet, Merlot, Cab Franc, Meritage–all very age-worthy. Phil recently opened a 94 Cabernet from his library wines and stated it was fantastic!

In addition to Phil’s focus on wine, Carol Baily is executive chef and manager for Carol’s Restaurant.  Carol’s has become such a popular wine country lunch spot, that starting in October, the restaurant will be adding dinner seatings on Friday and Saturday nights. In addition to Carol's Restaurant located at the winery, son Chris Baily, owns and operates his popular restaurant—Baily’s Old Town Temecula; needless to say, culinary art rivals the passion for wine in the Baily family.

2011 marks 25 years for Baily Winery. Celebrations are planned throughout the year, including several anticipated releases of Baily Winery’s aged collectable wines. For more information and directions visit www.bailywinery.com.