Rancho California — Events

Richard Elliot & Rick Braun - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

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Richard Elliot & Rick Braun - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

In 4 days · Aug 8 $85+ Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

A saxophone and a trumpet, trading lines like two old friends who finish each other's sentences -- that is the whole promise of a Richard Elliot and Rick Braun night, and it lands even harder outdoors with a glass of sparkling wine sweating in your hand. The two have toured together as 'RnR' for the better part of two decades, and the ease between them is the point; nobody is showing off, everybody is having a better time than they expected. Thornton sets it on the vineyard terrace in Temecula, dinner served as the sun drops behind the hills, the winery's own bubbles poured all evening. If your idea of a good Saturday involves fewer parking lots and more sunsets, this is your room. Bring the person who claims they 'don't really do jazz.' They will change their mind by the second song.

Tierra Legacy - Rhythm on the Vine at South Coast Winery

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Tierra Legacy - Rhythm on the Vine at South Coast Winery

In 5 days · Aug 9 $45+ South Coast Winery Resort & Spa, 3…

Ask anyone who came up in East LA and they will tell you what the first bars of 'Together' do to a room -- forty-five years later that song is still played at every wedding, every backyard, every low-and-slow cruise down Whittier Boulevard. Tierra didn't just have a hit; they built the Eastside Sound, the Chicano soul that scored a whole culture. The legacy band carries it forward with the horns and the harmonies fully intact, and on an August evening on South Coast's lawn in Temecula it turns into something between a concert and a family reunion for anybody who grew up on this music. Bring your parents. Bring the person you slow-danced with in a garage in 1985. This is one of those nights where half the crowd knows every word before the first note lands. Come home to it.

Chante Moore, Jackiem Joyner & Althea Rene - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

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11 days away

Chante Moore, Jackiem Joyner & Althea Rene - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

In 11 days · Aug 15 $85+ Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

By the second glass the sun is gone, the vineyard has flattened into silhouette, and then a voice starts and the whole terrace stops talking at once. Chante Moore has spent thirty years making rooms do that. Chante's Got a Man was inescapable, but it is the live control of her voice, the thing recordings only approximate, that keeps people driving out to a hillside to hear it. She shares this bill with saxophonist Jackiem Joyner and flutist Althea Rene, whose instrument is rare enough in this scene that she quietly steals more of the evening than anyone expects walking in. Thornton pours its estate sparkling wine, the kitchen runs dinner service on the terrace, and the Temecula hills handle the lighting for free. It is a grown-folks evening in the best sense of that phrase, close enough to home that nobody has to make a weekend of it. Come for the R&B and leave having found a flute player whose name you look up before you even start the car.

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22 Gathering

16 days away

Ponte Winery: Buffett Beach Night

Aug 21, 2026 Ponte Winery, 35053 Rancho Califor…

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.

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19 days away

Craig Campbell at Wilson Creek Winery

Aug 23, 2026 $45+ Wilson Creek Winery, 35960 Rancho …

On a warm Temecula evening, with the vineyard rows going gold behind the stage and a glass of the winery's famous almond champagne in hand, there are few nicer places in Southern California to catch a country show than the lawn at Wilson Creek. Nashville's Craig Campbell, the honky-tonk everyman behind Family Man and Fish, brings his warm, boot-scooting brand of country to wine country for an intimate outdoor night. Sunday, August 23, 2026, at Wilson Creek Winery in Temecula. Grab a bottle, spread a blanket or pull up a chair, and let the sun set over the vines while a genuinely great voice fills the valley. Bring a date or the whole crew. This is a low-key, gorgeous local night out that the Temecula Valley does better than anywhere. Come sip and sway.

Hiroshima - Rhythm on the Vine at South Coast Winery

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19 days away

Hiroshima - Rhythm on the Vine at South Coast Winery

Aug 23, 2026 $45+ South Coast Winery Resort & Spa, 3…

Nobody expects a Japanese koto to sit inside a funk groove and sound like it was always meant to be there -- but that has been Hiroshima's whole quiet miracle for almost fifty years. The band took the thirteen-string koto, wrapped it in jazz-fusion horns and a soul backbeat, and earned a Grammy nomination bridging two worlds that were not supposed to meet. Live, it is hypnotic; you go in curious and leave a convert. South Coast puts them on the lawn on an August night in Temecula wine country, the kind of setting that suits music this warm and this strange. Come for the novelty of it and stay because the groove will not let you go. Go in convinced you have heard it all. You have not heard this.

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214 Gathering

27 days away

214

Temecula Valley Wine Month — CRUSH 2026

Sep 1 – Sep 30, 2026 Temecula Valley Wine Country, Ranc…

The air changes first. Some week in early September the light drops lower on the hills, goes amber through the vines, and the whole valley stops selling and starts working. Harvest. Crush pads running, cellars that stay locked all year standing open, a fermentation note hanging over everything that you either find intoxicating or you don't — and almost everyone does. Here is the part nobody tells you: come on a weekday. The winemakers who give exactly one public tour a year give it now, and midweek they have time to talk to you instead of moving a line. That is the difference between tasting wine and understanding it. More than forty wineries sit within a few miles of each other along Rancho California Road — barrel tastings, harvest tours, grape stomps, chef's dinners that go weeks before the date. The stomps always sell first. Send this to the friend who keeps saying they want to do wine country properly. This is what properly looks like.

Jeffrey Osborne & Marqueal Jordan - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

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32 days away

Jeffrey Osborne & Marqueal Jordan - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

Sep 5, 2026 $85+ Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

You know the song before you remember you know it -- 'On the Wings of Love,' every wedding and every slow dance for forty years -- and the man who wrote and sang it is standing on a vineyard terrace in Temecula in early September. Jeffrey Osborne fronted L.T.D. before the solo career, and at this point his voice is a piece of American muscle memory; he could phone it in and still level the room, except he never does. Saxophonist Marqueal Jordan opens the night. Thornton runs its usual ritual around it -- estate sparkling wine, dinner service on the terrace, the hills turning violet as the set builds. This is the season winding into its warm, golden stretch. Bring your parents, bring a date, bring the friend who needs one perfect Saturday. Some voices you should hear in person while you still can.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band with Bobby Rush

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34 days away

Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band with Bobby Rush

Sep 7, 2026 $60+ South Coast Winery Resort & Spa, 3…

Few guitarists alive play the blues like Kenny Wayne Shepherd, who has been melting faces since he was a teenager; pairing him with the Grammy-winning bluesman Bobby Rush makes this one of the best blues bills to hit the Temecula Valley all year. South Coast Winery's Rhythm on the Vine series sets it all in the Vintner's Garden, an intimate outdoor stage surrounded by vineyards. Sunday, September 7, 2026, at South Coast Winery Resort in Temecula. Come for searing slide guitar and deep Delta soul, bring a bottle and a blanket, and let the blues roll across the vines as the sun goes down. If you have ever chased a guitar tone down a rabbit hole, this is your church. This is the real thing, playing in your own backyard. Come get the blues, the good kind.

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38 days away

Clay Walker at Wilson Creek Winery

Sep 11, 2026 $55+ Wilson Creek Winery, 35960 Rancho …

For anyone who came of age on 90s country radio, Clay Walker is pure muscle memory: If I Could Make a Living, Live Until I Die, hit after neotraditional hit, delivered by a voice that has aged like the good stuff. Hearing those songs live under the Temecula stars, vineyard breeze and a glass of local red in hand, is about as good as a Southern California summer night gets. Friday, September 11, 2026, at Wilson Creek Winery in Temecula. Come early to wander the grounds, grab a bottle, and settle onto the lawn as the sun drops behind the hills. The whole crowd turns into the backup choir by the second chorus. This is wine country doing what it does best, turning a concert into a whole gorgeous evening. Fifteen minutes from home and worlds away. Come raise a glass.

Al Jarreau Reunion Band with Chris Walker

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41 days away

Al Jarreau Reunion Band with Chris Walker

Sep 14, 2026 $60+ South Coast Winery Resort & Spa, 3…

The late Al Jarreau was one of the most gifted vocalists jazz ever produced, and the musicians who spent years by his side now carry that silky, joyful sound forward as the Al Jarreau Reunion Band, joined by vocalist Chris Walker. On the vineyard-ringed stage of South Coast Winery's Vintner's Garden, their smooth, sophisticated grooves are the perfect soundtrack to a golden Temecula evening. Sunday, September 14, 2026, at South Coast Winery Resort in Temecula. Come for the effortless cool, the sway of a great rhythm section, and a glass of something local as the light fades over the vines. A voice like that reminds you what the instrument was built for. This is grown-and-sexy wine-country jazz, minutes from home instead of an hour on the freeway. Come let it wash over you.

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47 days away

Chris Janson at Wilson Creek Winery

Sep 20, 2026 $55+ Wilson Creek Winery, 35960 Rancho …

Wine country is supposed to be the mellow option. Somebody booked a harmonica-blasting, piano-pounding country act onto a winery lawn in Temecula anyway, and the polite version of that evening survives about one song. The man behind Buy Me a Boat plays every show like it is the best party in town and he is personally responsible for how it goes. On a lawn under September stars, a bottle of the local pour open beside your chair and everybody around you there for exactly this, the night tips over into something rowdier than the tasting room ever prepared you for. You will be standing by the third song. You will lose your voice somewhere around the encore. Wilson Creek out in the Temecula Valley, a Sunday evening, close enough that nobody has to make a weekend of it. Bring the friend who insists they do not like country music.

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55 days away

Kalapana 50th Anniversary Celebration

Sep 28, 2026 $55+ South Coast Winery Resort & Spa, 3…

Some music does not belong to a genre so much as to an afternoon: the cooler is open, somebody's uncle is on the grill, and this is what has been playing underneath every one of those days for fifty years. Half a century of it, from Honolulu out to every backyard in Southern California that ever hosted a luau nobody planned properly. The anniversary show brings that catalog to the vineyards outside Temecula, and the crowd it pulls is the whole point — the Hawaiian-music community here turns out for this band the way you turn out for family. Bring a bottle and your most unhurried self. Somewhere between the second song and the sunset you stop checking your phone, and then you notice everyone around you already had. Send it to the person whose house always smelled like that on a Sunday.

Chris Botti - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

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60 days away

Chris Botti - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

Oct 3, 2026 $95+ Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

Close your eyes during a Chris Botti solo and you could swear you are in a Manhattan jazz club at one in the morning, except the air smells like crushed grapes and the ceiling is the actual sky. Botti is the best-selling American instrumental artist of his generation, a Grammy winner who spent years playing trumpet behind Sting before his own name got that big, and his tone does something specific to a room. People who announce that they do not like jazz go quiet mid-sentence. He plays Thornton's terrace on the first Saturday of October, the vineyard already turning toward harvest, the estate sparkling wine poured through dinner service. Of all fourteen nights in this series, the regulars circle his first. Twenty minutes up the freeway and you are as close to a great concert hall as this valley gets. Buy the seat now and thank yourself in autumn, sitting next to whoever you would most want there.

Boney James & JJ Sansaverino - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

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61 days away

Boney James & JJ Sansaverino - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

Oct 4, 2026 $85+ Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

Sunday evening, the last real weekend of the season, the Temecula hills going amber behind the stage -- and Boney James picking up the saxophone that has sold more records than almost anyone else's in his lane. Four Grammy nominations, a couple of decades at the top of the contemporary jazz charts, and a live show that runs warmer and funkier than the studio ever let on. Guitarist JJ Sansaverino rides shotgun. Thornton closes its October slate with the usual grace: estate sparkling wine, terrace dinner service, and that specific golden-hour light the winery seems to have a private deal with. A Sunday show is a small gift -- no Monday-morning dread yet, just the long exhale of a good weekend earned. Take the short drive out to the vineyard. Let someone else's saxophone carry the last of your summer out the door.

Brian Simpson, Ilya Serov & Michael Paulo - Rhythm on the Vine at South Coast Winery

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61 days away

Brian Simpson, Ilya Serov & Michael Paulo - Rhythm on the Vine at South Coast Winery

Oct 4, 2026 $45+ South Coast Winery Resort & Spa, 3…

The best smooth-jazz players are the ones you have heard a thousand times without ever learning their names -- the keyboard on the record you love, the sax on the ballad that gets you every time. Brian Simpson spent years as the musical director behind Janet Jackson and Teena Marie before his own name got big; put him alongside trumpeter Ilya Serov and saxophonist Michael Paulo and you get a front line of genuine craftsmen who make hard things sound like breathing. South Coast frames it on an October evening in Temecula, the vineyard cooling down, glasses full, the horns carrying over the rows. This is grown-up music for a grown-up night out, minutes from home. Bring someone whose company you actually enjoy in the quiet parts. The quiet parts are the whole point.

Will Downing, Marion Meadows & Alex Bugnon - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

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67 days away

Will Downing, Marion Meadows & Alex Bugnon - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

Oct 10, 2026 $85+ Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

Some voices are built for a stadium; this one is built for a room where you can hear the ice settle in your glass. They have called Will Downing the Prince of Sophisticated Soul for so long that it stopped being marketing and became simple fact -- a baritone so smooth it feels like it is doing you a personal favor. He anchors the mid-October bill alongside saxophonist Marion Meadows and pianist Alex Bugnon, three artists who have spent careers making Saturday nights feel expensive in the best way. Thornton frames it the way it frames everything: vineyard terrace, estate sparkling wine, dinner as the light goes down over the rows. This deep into the series the crowd knows the drill and the evening runs like silk. It is a short drive up the valley for a night that feels a great deal farther from ordinary than the mileage suggests.

Thornton Winery Champagne Jazz: Richard Marx

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Thornton Winery Champagne Jazz: Richard Marx

May 23, 2026 Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho California Rd, Temecula. May 23rd. Richard Marx at the Champagne Jazz Series — the outdoor concert format that Thornton Winery has been perfecting since 1988, in a vineyard setting that makes the whole evening feel like the specific California life that wine country is trying to be. The Champagne Jazz Series puts artists on an outdoor stage in the middle of Temecula wine country, with the vineyard visible from every seat and the Rancho California hills holding the sound in the early evening. Richard Marx — whose catalog runs from "Endless Summer Nights" to "Right Here Waiting" to the ballads that lived on every mixtape of a certain era — brings exactly the material that works in this setting. It is not a small thing to hear a song you know completely, performed live, with the sun going down over the vines. thorntonwine.com for ticket details and the Champagne Jazz Series schedule. May 23rd. The outdoor setting means arrive early enough to find your space before the show. Wine tasting runs before the concert. The dinner option pairs with the experience if you're making a full evening of wine country at its best version of itself.

Thornton Winery Champagne Jazz: Damien Escobar & Julian Vaughn

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Thornton Winery Champagne Jazz: Damien Escobar & Julian Vaughn

May 30, 2026 Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho California Rd, Temecula. May 30th. Damien Escobar and special guest at the Thornton Winery Champagne Jazz Series — the outdoor concert format in Temecula wine country that has been pairing live performance with the vineyard setting since 1988, which is long enough to know exactly what it's doing. Damien Escobar — the neo-classical violinist who built a career on the collision between classical training and contemporary R&B and hip-hop influence — brings that particular energy to an outdoor stage surrounded by the Rancho California hills. The Champagne Jazz series is the event where the wine and the music are doing the same work: creating the specific evening you'll still be thinking about after the drive home. thorntonwine.com for ticket details and the full Champagne Jazz schedule. May 30th. Arrive for the wine tasting before the show and the full Temecula wine country experience assembles itself. The outdoor setting means come with the right people and the evening takes care of the rest. Reserve early — Thornton Winery's outdoor shows fill before the summer season opens.

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Ponte Winery: A Night in the Country

Jul 17, 2026 Ponte Winery, 35053 Rancho Califor…

Brian Gaylord & the Country Star Band play live country-western music at Ponte Winery Friday July 17 from 6–9 PM, paired with a BBQ buffet — Santa Maria tri-tip, classic country sides — and Temecula Valley estate wines under the summer sky. The rolling hills of Ponte's vineyard at dusk with country music and a glass already poured. The July heat breaks by evening. There is nowhere else you'd rather be. Tickets at pontewinery.com.

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Kirk Whalum & Andrea Lisa with Rebecca Jade - Champagne Jazz at Thornton Winery

Aug 1, 2026 $85+ Thornton Winery, 32575 Rancho Cali…

Somewhere in your phone is a playlist you reach for when the week finally lets go of your shoulders, and Kirk Whalum's tenor is probably on it whether you know his name or not. That is his saxophone on Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' -- the one solo that made a generation cry at weddings. On the first Saturday of August he brings that gospel-warm sound to Thornton's outdoor terrace, with Andrea Lisa and vocalist Rebecca Jade beside him and the Temecula vineyard rows going gold behind the stage. The winery pours the sparkling wine it makes on-site by the same method as Champagne, which is the whole reason the series carries that name. Come early for the dinner service, stay for the last light over the vines. This is a Saturday you drive twenty minutes for and remember for a year.

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