The heat lets go somewhere around dusk and the whole estate turns gold at once, and by then you have a glass in your hand and no particular reason to be anywhere else.
That is the trick this valley runs every summer: brutal at noon, perfect after. The evening events on the grounds are built entirely around the second half of that sentence. You arrive for the setting, you stay for the cool-down, you leave when the stars are out. What a Buffett night adds is the grammar, a whole catalog written about being somewhere between the equator and civilization, played to people sitting in a vineyard an hour inland who have decided that for one evening they are.
Rancho California Road in Temecula wine country, with the food and wine handled by the estate.
You bring nothing but the person you would actually want beside you when the last song turns out to be one the entire field already knows.
The grape stomp is not a metaphor. You will actually stand in a barrel. Your feet will be purple. The person next to you will be trying harder than the situation calls for. This is the appeal.
Callaway Vineyard's annual Sip, Stomp & Play is one of the harvest celebrations that turns Temecula Wine Country into a destination every September — a Saturday evening that starts with check-in at 6:30, moves through a glass of Callaway wine and an outdoor dinner (the menu changes each year but the vineyard-to-table philosophy doesn't), and peaks with the grape stomping competition where teams of four chase fun prizes with stained ankles and zero technique.
Live music and dancing fill the space between the stomping and the stars. Callaway has been making wine in Temecula since 1969, which means the vines you're looking at during dinner are older than most of the guests.
Saturday, September 13, 2026. Check-in 6:30 PM. Callaway Vineyard & Winery, 32720 Rancho California Rd, Temecula, CA 92591. $125 general, $100 wine club, $70 kids 4–11.
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