​We made it out to another winery this weekend, this time going to the Highland Valley region to drop in on Speckle Rock Winery.  It is located on Highland Valley Road in Escondido about midway between Pomerado Road and Route 67, up in the hills.  We sat on the back side of the winery building, outside (of course), well-separated from the other patrons with a great view as shown in the picture below.

​As with most of the wineries, we could only purchase bottles or glasses of wine – no regular wine tasting.  If you recall my report on our first visit to Speckle Rock, I was impressed by their 2018 Pinot Noir.  Well, it has been released so naturally I bought a glass.  Pricey at $15 for a glass, but that is their normal tasting price so not much change there.  My wife tried their Grenache-Merlot-Sangiovese blend.  Worked out perfect – I really preferred the Pinot Noir, and she preferred the blend.
They had a pretty good crowd at widely separated tables, as required.  No hanging in their small tasting room, of course.  Like Principe di Tricase, Speckle Rock has brought in caterers to provide patrons with food choices.  For our Sunday visit they had Tuetano Taqueria (see picture).  I enjoyed a very good carne asado street taco.  Oh, the had music as well, beginning at 4 PM.

After many days of isolation, our brave team embarked on its mission of exploration.  Our first journey was north to seek the lost winery of Ponte and its famed restaurant.  We found it in the valley of Temecula.  The inhabitants proved most friendly, and we were able to partake of their wine and food for mere plastic.  We discovered a change in the set-up, one which we had not expected but of course should have.  The area that they had used on weekends for their royalty (wine club members) was now open to the peasants and royalty every day for wine tasting only.  We brought back pictures of our journey, shown below.

​With the success of the Ponte expedition, we decided to test our luck by exploring the region known as Ramona.  We were specifically seeking to once again worship Bacchus at his alter at a place called Principe di Tricase, settled by others from our ancient homeland of Italy.  We wound our way over a mountain then down to the Highland Valley region of this Ramona area.  There, along the road we found the trail that led to Principe.  Much to our delight, the inhabitants augmented their wine with food from our common homeland – pizza and a great delight known as panzerotti, a sort of Italian empanada.  (Aside:  the pizza margherita is Roman style, i.e., like an American cheese pizza with added basil.  Not made with fresh mozzarella and tomatoes).

​Then there were the wines.  Wonderful white, rose, red and sweet wines.  And one very special offering:  a red wine made from the ancient Roman grape Sagrantino.  This was new – only one other winery in Ramona grows this particular grape.  Known for its extremely high tannin levels, normally the Sagrantino varietal needs substantial aging to soften the tannins.  But the wise wine seers at Principe were able to create a Sagrantino with soft tannins with little aging!  The wine is a 2019 vintage – and it is great!!!
There is some good news and some bad news about this marvelous wine.   The bad news is that were not the first to discover this wine, i.e., they don’t have much left.  The good news is that I got three bottles!  Well, good news for me, that is….