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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WINERY REVIEW

Southern California has become a great place to go wine tasting! Great wines, great wineries -- and great people! This website is dedicated to bringing you the best info on wineries in San Diego and Riverside counties -- and a few other places as well. Enjoy!

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Turtle Rock Ridge Vineyard Winery

2/22/2019

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Turtle Rock Ridge Vineyard Winery is probably the worst kept secret in Ramona. It has been voted best wine and tasting room in Ramona numerous times. So, you are probably asking why it has taken me so long to get around to visiting them. Well, truth be told, I just blew it….
You can get there by driving along route 67 through Ramona, then taking a right turn on Third Street. There are plenty of signs when you get close. Like most Ramona wineries, they are open only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
The facility is one of the better ones in Ramona. Plenty of seating outside as well as in an enclosed patio (see pictures below). They have a great location, with rather nice views in all directions. And of course turtle rocks...

The tasting room is small (see pictures below), but it really need not be very big with the two patios. We sat at a table for the tasting rather than standing at a bar in the Temecula fashion. We knew as soon as we entered the building that this was a popular spot – a lot of people in the winery for a cold winter’s day.

Tasting is $12 per person for six tastes, though you can also do three tastes for $6. Tasting menus are shown below. We tasted the red wines, all of which were pretty good. Love the names…
In addition to tasting their red wines, we tasted their “Chocolate Turtle” dessert wine. I usually do not like dessert wines, and was pretty skeptical about the chocolate infusion, but it is a really nice wine.
As you can read on the menu, they do serve some food – namely a cheese ball with crackers for $12.96 (really good!), and one with meat added for $20 (can’t comment on the meat -- we only tried the cheese ball). You can bring your own food and picnic on their grounds.

They have a wine club, but I’m going to have to confess that I didn’t get the details while I was there – I assumed they were on their web page. Which they are not. Wine club members do get a 20% discount and can also arrange to use their upper patio, shown in the picture below. I’ve also included a few pictures of their turtle rocks.

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Valentine's Day 2019

2/16/2019

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My wife and I decided to spend Valentine’s Day at a winery, so we made reservations to stay at the Inn at Ponte Vineyard. I was unable to make dinner reservations at their restaurant, so we opted to try South Coast Winery’s Vineyard Rose restaurant. It was incredible.
First off, there was the noise – or lack of. As you can see in the picture below, carpeted floors, sound-absorbing cloths on the ceiling, and individual booths dampen the sounds so much that you really do not hear anyone speaking at nearby tables.

Then, there was the music – two guitarists at first, with a violinist joining them later. Without the din of loud talking we could really enjoy the music.

Of course, the dinner wouldn’t be particularly special if the food was just so-so. It was not just so-so. It was not good. It was not great. It was spectacular!!! The first course was a crab salad, so good that my wife, who really does not like crab, enjoyed it. Second course was even better, lamb over some kind of ravioli. We had options for the third course – either filet or scallops. My wife opted for the filet and I went with the scallops. Both were incredible. The presentation on all of the courses was incredible, as seen in the final dish, a lemon tart, shown below.

Of course, we had local wine with the meal. Now South Coast is the sister winery of Carter Estate, ergo wines from both wineries were available. Having just visited Carter’s we knew what we wanted, their 2013 Sangiovese. Served at the perfect temperature, it was a perfect wine for the meal. As a side note, for some reason our server thought that the Sangiovese is a Spanish grape. We were quick to point out that it is an Italian grape. Where are the sommeliers when you need them?
This was not an inexpensive dinner -- the food alone ran $100 per person – but for a once-a-year experience well worth the money

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Longshadow Ranch Winery and Vineyards

2/8/2019

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Longshadow Ranch Winery and Vineyards is located in Temecula, one of the wineries on a side road off of Rancho California. Now it is my understanding that ranches have horses. Well, as seen in the picture below, they have horses – and a very nice winery and some very nice wine. A very pleasant place to visit.

The wine tasting room is quite large, with plenty of open space. I would have liked some tables, but there is good seating outside so for most of the year it is not a big issue. As expected, the interior décor is quite ranch-like, and not cluttered with items for sale. The picture of the horse above is taken from the outside tasting area. There is a second area across from the main building – see below. They have music on weekends, and some very nice special events, including bonfires on Saturdays starting in April, carriage rides through the vineyards, and on Sundays they make Sangria from their Gunslinger Red Wine

As you can see from their tasting menu, they have an interesting array of red wines. You get five tastes for $15, and they take the Priority Wine Pass. All but their Tempranillo were quite good, but don’t take my word on the Tempranillo – I’m not a great fan of that particular varietal. Tasting was done in the more conventional Temecula manner – you went to the bar for the pours. No rinsing of the glasses before pouring, and the red wines were not particularly chilled (but it was cool inside, so that made a difference). They do have water available.

One of the things I like about Southern California wineries is their willingness to try new things, and Longshadow is in that class. In their case, it is not about finding some rare grape, such as Refosco, but rather making varietal wines from grapes that are common but grown primarily as a blend. Longshadow offers two such, Cinsault and Petit Verdot. Note that they were not on the tasting menu, usually an indication of a popular wine.
They innovate with their wine club as well. Their standard wine club is a two bottle every other month affair, with a minimum of three shipments – unless you want white wine only, in which case you have to buy three bottles every other month. Discount is 15%, and you get free premium wine tasting as well as other bennies. They are now offering a unique deal where you pay $19.99 per month without any wine purchase requirements in return for unlimited wine tasting for one person.

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WINERY REVIEW

Turtle Rock Ridge Vineyard Winery

Valentine's Day 2019

Longshadow Ranch Winery and Vineyards

Jim Treglio

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