​We finally made a visit to Orfila Vineyards and Winery’s urban tasting room in the San Diego County city of Oceanside.  It is a relatively small but quite nice facility only a block from the ocean.  We sat at a table outside, drinking one of favorite wines (more on this wine below), enjoying first their charcuterie board, then a hummus and pita platter. Two important points to be made about these dishes.  First, the charcuterie board includes bread that is absolutely incredible.  Second, the hummus is very spicey.  You'll have to excuse the funny angles of the pictures below.  I took them after my second glass of wine....

​Now on to the wine mentioned above.  It was Lagrein.  This wine is a very rare red variety grown mostly in northern Italy, the subject of an earlier blog on this website.  We have been waiting for this 2019 vintage for some time now, and it did not disappoint.  It could have been served a bit cooler, though.  I’m guessing that they are more accustomed to the Escondido tasting room, which is kept quite cool.  As you can see in the menu below, most of the Orfila wines are available, and wine club members get their normal discounts and free wine.
One final note:  parking.  Because it is a urban site, parking is a problem.  There are a few spaces in front, but I should warn you that you have to back into these spaces.

​It was a nice Sunday afternoon – sun shining, temperature in the mid 60’s – a perfect day to do some exploring.  So Doc Ed and I decided to branch out, seek a winery in one of the remote areas of San Diego County.  We chose Old Survey Vineyard on Old Survey Road.
Old Survey Road branches off of Bandy Canyon Road about halfway between the San Diego Zoo and Highland Valley Road.  In other words, in the middle of nowhere.  One mile up that road (and I do mean UP) one finds Old Survey Vineyard.  We averaged about ten miles an hour going up the road, by the way.  No traffic, just a really bad road (they hope to repair it soon).  What we found at the end of our trip was worth it:  a very nice facility with a great view, and, most important, good wine.  You can see from the pictures below that we weren’t the only people wine tasting in the middle of nowhere that afternoon, i.e., I did not discover Old Survey (par for the course).

​Old Survey is a small winery, very boutique.  While the amount of estate grown wine is limited, they do make wines from grapes purchased from other vineyards.  We came to learn that the wines vary from year to year, i.e., they don’t buy the same grape varieties every year.  Currently they only offer red wines, all priced the same ($43 a bottle).  Their current offerings are shown in the wine tasting list below.  Tastings are $10 per and include all of the five listed wines, unless you leave your glass unattended…  This is a very friendly winery.
As for the wine, well, suffice it to say that the worst of the wines we tasted was pretty good.  This is relatively rare.  Not a single wine in the “eh” level – including a Tempranillo!!!  So for all of you readers of this blog that are fans of Tempranillo, this is the place to go…

​Old Survey is a small winery, but they do have a wine club.  They only require members to purchase 8 bottles of wine a year in two batches – May and November – that they select.  Discount is approximately 20%.