Trevi Hills Vineyard & Fine Homes, luxury homes, dramatic views and the love of wine

Stunning views, beautiful homes and the love of Tuscany wines is a recipe for a new locale in Muth Valley that no other community in the San Diego County area equals. Built around the love of wine making, Trevi Hills Vineyard & Fine Homes is a soon to be destination for wine lovers offering a unique opportunity for its homeowners. Being the owner of a luxury home and a part of something special is obtainable with the centerpiece of this new neighborhood on the outskirts of Lakeside being Trevi Hills Winery.

Stunning views, beautiful homes and the love of Tuscany wines is a recipe for a new locale in Muth Valley that no other community in the San Diego County area equals. Built around the love of wine making, Trevi Hills Vineyard & Fine Homes is a soon to be destination for wine lovers offering a unique opportunity for its homeowners. Being the owner of a luxury home and a part of something special is obtainable with the centerpiece of this new neighborhood on the outskirts of Lakeside being Trevi Hills Winery. Homeowners have the availability of attainable views to the ocean, beautiful landscapes, a park, 10 different luxury Tuscany village home plans, and large lots. But out of the ordinary, Trevi Hills is offering a piece of the winery to residents by allowing them to utilize parts of their land to grow Tuscan grapes and co-op with the winery.

Trevi Hills Project Manager Matt Deal said this is a very large project, with 800 acres, 250 home sites, its vineyards and the winery. It is intertwined in nearly 500 acres of biological open space, preserved in its natural state forever. Deal is a seasoned home building executive who has developed more than 1,500 homes as well as five master planned communities.

“We discovered that this is really a great place for growing grapes and the juice that we produce is fabulous,” said Deal. “It is as good as anything coming out of Napa or Sonoma. Since we built the winery building here, and we harvested our second real vintage this year and it’s all here in bins and barrels slowly turning into wine.”

Since the beginning of building of Trevi Hills, Deal said many of its neighbors are already coming in and asking how they can participate in growing grapes for the winery. He said this is exciting for all involved in the Trevi Hills’ project and San Diego.

“It’s been a pleasant surprise that the people that live up here are so enthusiastic, and with the quality of grapes we grow, we really believe that Muth Valley can become the wine center of San Diego County based on the quality of the wines we have and the enthusiasm of the people that live here to participate and get involved in growing grapes,” he said.

Surrounding the winery is the spacious Tuscan styled village housing development. The homes are Tuscan village style, 3,000 to 3.500 sq. ft. indoor, outdoor living with large covered patios, verandas, big lots, all acre lots or more in and/or backing up on open space. Trevi Hills has areas that are thick with California live oak trees, natural rock formation landscapes and panoramic views as far as the ocean. Deal said the reaction of most people is the beauty and solitude of the area, many not knowing this beautiful part of the valley existed.

“But we are up here and what we are doing is taking God’s gift here and sharing it with our wine and the homes that we are building. Given that we have the Mediterranean climate and growing these great wines—that’s Trevi Hills,” he said.

Prices for these luxury homes begin in the low $900,000. Home sites range from one to 2.5 acres. Trevi Hills is building a six acre park and there is a county trail that coexists with the community. It is the only housing project in the area that has county water and not wells.

“It’s a wonderful place. The weather is always great and the air is always clear up here. It’s a beautiful place, the vineyard is up and running and we just want to share it with the world,” said Deal.

Michael Larrañaga, vineyard general manager is a long time vigneron. A San Diego native, he is a certified sommelier with the French Court of Sommeliers, trained in the vineyards of Northern California and Italy and involved in the wine and hospitality industry for more than 30 years. Larrañaga works closely with Trevi Hills winemaker Renato Sais, who differentiated himself with award winning wines at Maurice Ca’ rie Winery in Temecula and his family’s winery in Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico, Legado Sais. He has been award more than 100 medals for his wines.

Larrañaga said this project is a perfect match as many people talk about owning a vineyard, but when they really check into what it takes to do so, they quickly change their minds. But Trevi Hills gives the community the chance to also be wine growers. Homeowners can set aside a portion of their home site as a vineyard, professionally managed by the Trevi Hills Winery Team. In addition to providing land use, homeowners select and purchase grape vines and furnishes water for irrigation. Trevi Hills tend the vines, harvests the grapes, and makes the wine. Residents may participate in cultivation and winemaking as much as they desire, or not at all. Homeowners and Trevi Hills splits the wine produced 50/50, with homeowners getting their own private label wine. Every 1,000 sq. ft. planted typically yields 75 bottles of wine. (One acre equals 43,560 sq. ft.)

“So this actually gives homeowners a chance to actually own a vineyard,” he said. “When Matt puts up the houses we give owners the option for us to go into their property and plant and do a co-op program with them and basically, this is part of their winery. We do private labels for the homeowners so they have a little piece of Trevi Hills.”

Larrañaga said planting in the hills of Muth, anything Tuscany will grow mid-Italy and Southern part of France. It now grows Sangiovese, Primitivo, Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc. Hopefully later, it will plant a little Grenache. Trevi Hills harvested all four varietals with a bountiful harvest and has produced its vintages since 2014.

“These are some beautiful Mediterranean kind of wines,” he said. “The soil up here is very thin and rocky, which is fantastic for growing grapes. They have to work hard and they get that little mineral in the taste. With the ocean air, all of our canyons run east to west unlike Temecula that runs north to south, which is great because the ocean air comes right up the canyons and sit on these grapes. It’s beautiful, the growing here is just perfect and it shows in the wine.”

Trevi Hills is a very small boutique winery, which enables it to kind of hand make everything. It’s not large production, it’s very limited and very small. People will not Trevi Hills wine in 1,000 grocery stores. It is not in its vision for the Trevi Hills name or community.

“This is a destination place, kind of our little island in the mountains,” said Larrañaga. “This is now our first vintage and we have done everything here on the property. We harvested, crushed, pressed, barreled and bottled everything right here. Hopefully in the future, other wineries that don’t want to do this kind of investment can bring juice here that we’ll actually crush, barrel and bottle for them. Our neighbors are dying to plant so they can be part of this, but right now we are concentrating on our development.”

All wines are produced on site with state-of-the art winemaking equipment at its 3,000 sq. ft. winery, tasting room and patio that overlooks the Muth Valley and 800-acre gated community of Trevi Hills. It just held its grand opening Oct. 21,-22, opening the winery to the public for the first time, and regularly features local artists, craftspeople and photographers.

Trevi Hills is a project of San Diego based Pacifica Companies, a multi-national real estate and development company. Local properties include the Hotel La Valencia and the Chula Vista Bayfront. Pacifica is well-known for its environmental conscience in large projects, preserving protected land and restoring natural habitats as part of its large projects.

Trevi Hills Winery is located at 1300 Muth Valley Road in Lakeside. It is open 10:100 a.m. to dusk Tuesday through Sunday. Tasting fees are $8 per flight.

For more information visit www.trevihills.com.