Weekend At A Winery: Tour Temecula In 'Real Housewives'-Style

TEMECULA, CA — Those seeking a unique way to tool about Temecula's wine country can take a page from hotel-chain socialite Kathy Hilton's "hunky-dory" playbook — a one-of-a-kind, winery-hopping trolley service.

Hilton, a newcomer to this season's "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," organized a gal-pal, getaway to San Diego, with a side trip to Temecula wineries. The episode, which aired this week, included the cast's wine-sipping adventures via Temecula Valley Cable Car Wine Tours, a local business that uses restored, 1900s-era, San Francisco cable cars to motor its wine-tour guests.

Cable Car Wine Tours, which offers wine tours by day and haunted tours at night, launched in 2006 with the initial goal of restoring an original 1914 San Francisco cable car as a vineyard trolley.

Now, years later, the firm operates five cable cars in Temecula, three in Texas and is working on another 25 for use in Napa, Sonoma and Paso Robles wine regions, according to Jared Broach, director of Eat Drink Scare Tours.

"Our Instagram-worthy cable cars are unlike any experience in wine country. They set the mood for what is going to be an amazing day," Broach said. "We combine this historic ride with our specially trained tour guides. So while most companies do the drop-and-wait, on our tours you get a trained tour guide to stay with you all day, helping you and explaining the wine and winemaking process."

The cable cars can be booked for general or private tours — with seating of up to 32 per trolley — and are popular with family reunions, weddings and bachelorette parties, the company said.

The RHOBH episode's February filming took a full day, and cast, crews ... and Broach ... had to stay mum on details until September's airing and promotion.

"We definitely weren't allowed to disclose that we filmed or anything, until after they showed a preview or posted something," he said.

"I think the one thing I was amazed about is it wasn't scripted at all. I thought there would be times where they paused shooting and made us redo stuff, but it truly was just all natural," said Broach, who credited Bravo producers with doing "an amazing job of editing me to make me look way smarter than I felt like the scene went."

Hilton, now a RHOBH fan fave for her comical quips, including "Who is Hunky Dory?" took fellow-cast members, Erika Girardi, Kyle Richards, Lisa Rinna, Dorit Kemsley, Garcelle Beauvais, Sutton Stracke and Crystal Kung Minkoff on the Southern California excursion.

Tour guide Broach said he initially did not realize he was chatting up the Kathy Hilton, mother of celeb daughters, Paris and Nicky, and found her to be an "amazingly, down-to-earth person."

On filming day, Broach led the ladies to stop-and-sips at such spots as at Lorimar Vineyards and Winery, Fazeli Cellars and Avensole Winery.

As for the local wineries' guest reactions when RHOBH arrived? Over-the-top, according to Broach, who said patrons shouted out greetings to the women as they came on the scene.

"It was kind of crazy how famous they truly are," he said. "And to be around that, I am certainly not used to that experience."

Details on Temecula Valley Cable Car Wine Tours, its winery partners, bookings and menus can be found here.

For a full list of Temecula Valley-area wineries, go here. Lodging options are here.

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