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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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Another new winery, this time in Temecula: Altisima Winery.

Vineyard Grant James

5/19/2019

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I have discovered a great winery! Well, I really didn’t discover them – ok, truth is I should have visited them a long time ago, but you see they didn’t get on my list because every time I tried to pull up their website my computer crashed, and then I had a phone call from a telemarketer, and then the dog ate my homework….
The winery is Vineyard Grant James, located on Old Julian Highway in Ramona. As seen in the poster pictured below, Vineyard Grant James has been selected as the second-best winery in the country!!! So, yeah, I really should have visited them a long time ago. To think of all that great wine that I did not get to drink. Woe is me!

Vineyard Grant James, like most of the wineries in Ramona, is classified as “boutique”. They do not have an indoor tasting room – tasting is done outside on a very nice patio (see pictures that follow). Note the coolers behind the bar – yes, they do their best to serve the wines at the correct temperature! Munchies and water available, and on occasion they have a cheese tasting. Oh, and various special events – more on this at the end. Like most boutique wineries in Ramona, they are open only Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Unlike most boutique wineries in Ramona, they have live entertainment.

Doc Ed and I were the only ones there, so we had the great fortune of spending time with the owner and winemaker, Susanne. Their tasting “menu” is shown below, but Susanne really didn’t work off of it. She pulled wines out of the cooler for us to taste, starting with two white wines, a Viognier and a Chardonnay. Egad, I actually liked them both. Then we hit the reds, including Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, and Zinfandel. Wow. One little warning – they have very little Nebbiolo left. One bottle, actually. I should point out that they do not list their Sangiovese on their website, but it is really good…. Nice pepper in the Zinfandel. Oh, normal tasting fee is $10 for six tastes.

I could go on and on about their wine, but I need to move on. They have a wine club, minimum three bottles/quarter with a 20% discount on all wine and 50% off wine tasting, and, of course, wine pickup parties. Ho, hum…
But then there are the special events. First off is a river cruise in Portugal, visiting the Portuguese wineries – see picture of the flyer below. They have a series of lectures from Sommeliers, including a Master. You can also get a private tour with Susanne. Perhaps the most exciting is a series of wine pairing dinners with chefs from all over the place. As these are scheduled, I’ll try to post them on this site.

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Cordiano Winery

5/8/2019

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Last February, Doc Ed, my wife and I visited Cordiano Winery on Highland Valley Road in Escondido. We ordered some pizza, then stepped up to the bar to taste their wines. The first wine we opted to taste was a Pinot Noir made from grapes grown in Paso Robles. The wine had a very strange color, sort of orange. The taste was worse than the appearance. Doc Ed, a level 1 Sommelier, casually asked the server if they stored their wines on site. He was proud to say that, yes, they stored them on site in a temperature-controlled facility – keeping the temperature at a steady 74 F. When we returned to our table, Doc Ed theorized that the wine had oxidized too rapidly because of the high storage temperature, and was ruined. As it turned out, all of their wines had the same orangey hue and none were drinkable.
This was a great tragedy. You see, Cordiano makes some really great pizza, and I know pizza, so if I say it is really great, it is really great! They have a very nice facility as well. See for yourself in the pictures that follow. So, last weekend I decided it was time to see if they had corrected the problem. I am very, very happy to report that all is now well with Cordiano Winery. The wines are all red and all pretty good. And the pizza, well, it is even better!

The great pizza is not an anomaly. The Cordiano’s were big in the restaurant business – indeed, they owned several restaurants in the San Diego area which they sold to start the winery. Hence, it comes as no surprise that Cordiano Winery is more like a restaurant with a winery rather than a winery with a restaurant. For example, you are greeted on entering by a host or hostess who seats you at a numbered table. There is no tasting room, just the open-air restaurant area, though there are two tasting “bars”, one where you order your food as well as your tasting. In addition to the food and wine, you can purchase other beverages, including beer on tap.
While they are a restaurant with a winery, they handle the wine tasting part better than most wineries with or without a restaurant. For me that means the wines are served at the proper temperature, with the bottles kept in individual bottle coolers as shown in the picture below. Water is readily available, both to rinse and to keep you hydrated. Of course, it is a restaurant, so munchies are not a problem – in addition to pizza they have a full menu of pastas and salads. I have no idea if their other foods are any good, and may never find out – did I mention that they make really good pizza?

They have two levels of tasting: four tastes for $10 or seven tastes for $15. I went with the four-taste offering but wound up tasting six of their red wines as their Sicilian winemaker who insisted I try his Cabernet Franc and Tempranillo. Now I really do not like Tempranillo, but I have to admit his is pretty good, maybe the best I have ever tasted. The latest tasting menus follow. Really liked the Pinot Noir and the Sangiovese.

Their wine club is a 12 bottle/year affair at a 20% discount, three per quarter. The winemaker selects the wines, but members have the option to choose replacements. Members get two free tastings per visit, and they have special events for wine club members. Now, here’s the clincher – the 20% discount extends to the restaurant! Did I mention that they make some really good pizza?
Important note: Cordiano Winery is open five days a week (closed Monday and Tuesday) from 11 am to 7 pm. Please enjoy more pictures of their facility, including their bottle pyramid.

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WINERY REVIEW

Vineyard Grant James

Cordiano Winery

Jim Treglio

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