​We only made it out to one winery this weekend, Orfila.  Orfila is a larger winery located in Escondido (sort of) on the road leading to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  I say “sort of” since the winery is owned by the city of San Diego and leased to Orfila.
Anyway, this is probably the most popular winery in San Diego County, and in normal times packed on weekends.  Accordingly, to limit the numbers at the winery you have to make a reservation in advance.  They have the reservations set up every two hours, and limit visits to one-and-a-half hours so they have a half hour to disinfect before the next group arrives.  As shown below, tables are separated.  In addition to the normal seating, they opened up their special events tent as well, also shown below.

Like the previous wineries we visited, no tasting – just glasses or bottles of wine.  Wines available are shown in the two menus below.  Not good photos -- it was windy and, well, I had wine to drink, and the dog ate my homework....

​We tried two of the Pinot Noir offerings – Stem Head and Element 119.  The better of the two, the Element 119, is shown below.  Note its color is on the dark side for Pino Noir. This Orfila Element 119 Pinot Noir has long been one of my favorites, and my wife, Doc Ed, and I all like it much better than their Sequestered Pinot Noir, even though that wine is higher rated – 92 pts for Element 119, 94 pts for Sequestered.

​While we really like their Element 119 Pinot Noir, we love a wine not available on the menu, their Lagrein, a rare full-bodied Italian red varietal.  It was not on the menu because they are running low on it, so we decided to make it even rarer by buying a case.  Sorry about that, but you know how it is – all’s fair in war and wine…

The wineries in Ramona opened this weekend, so naturally my wife and I headed out that way.  We headed through the Ramona downtown (such as it is), turned right on 3rd Street, and then on to Old Julian Highway.
We decided to begin at the end, so to speak, driving all the way out to Poppaea.  They were not open for wine tasting yet (they plan on opening in early July), so we headed back along Old Julian Highway, this time stopping at Old Julian Winery.
Old Julian is a new winery and an old winery, one just opened for the first-time sort of.  OK, a bit of explanation is needed.  The winemaker at Old Julian, John York, is also the owner/winemaker at Hellanback Ranch.  He closed his tasting room at Hellanback Ranch because his facility is too far off the main road.  He then took on the winemaking task at Old Julian, which features wines from both wineries.  The Old Julian Winery has had a bit of an issue opening up their tasting room, however, so it turns out that this was pretty much their “Grand Opening” on Saturday, assuming the wineries don’t have to shut down again due to the virus.
​As seen in the pictures below, it is a very nice facility.  It was a fantastic day to sit out and drink wine.  Under the new rules you really can’t “wine taste”, you are pretty much limited to purchasing a glass or bottle to drink.  Not much of a problem, though – they only had four wines available, a rose, a white (Viognier), and two reds (Petite Sirah and a Bordeaux blend).  We tried the reds and found them both quite nice, even bought a bottle of the Bordeaux blend.  I will have a more detailed review of this winery when I’ve had a chance to taste more of their wine.

​Now we had to pass Vineyard Grant James to get home, which is simply not possible to do without stopping in.  To handle the increased spread between tables, they’ve added seating in the back of the house (see picture below).  Our understanding is that they are planning some major facility improvements, including adding a real bathroom!  I have to admit that I am hooked on their Negroamaro.  That’s one you really need to try….
Bad part of the trip was being limited to just glasses of wine.  Tastings are so much more fun.  Anyway, suggest if you do hit the wineries while the glass or bottle requirement is in effect that you bring something to eat.

It being an absolutely gorgeous day in Southern California, we decided it was time to head up north to Temecula to visit the wineries.  Now you can't go to the wineries just to drink the wine.  You have to eat there as well.  Really not a problem for me....
First stop was Lorimar, and much to our surprise in addition to wine and food we got entertainment from  Brad and Al (see picture below).  Question of the day:  how did they get such great talent to perform on a Monday afternoon?

For wine we had glasses of both Montepulciano and Zinfandel.  Actually liked the Zin better...  Food was great.  My wife and I split a flat bread pizza and a chicken Caesar salad.
Lorimar is handling the social distancing rather easily -- plenty of room on their outdoor seating area, so tables are far apart.  Surprisingly large number of guests for a Monday afternoon.

Then is was on to Fazeli.  Wine of choice was their excellent Shiraz (Syrah), which went very well with some hummus and pita.  Note Doc Ed hiding behind the bottle.
Great food, great wine, great friends, and, of course, the great view from their outdoor patio!

​If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  So what do you do if life gives you spoiled wine?
Well, that is a problem that Alfredo Gallone, owner of Principe di Tricase, faced.  Before making wine he obtained some Cabernet Sauvignon to experiment with.  During the 2007 Witch Creek fire here in San Diego County some of the wine overheated, turning brown due to oxidation.  He kept the wine, not knowing what to do with it.
Fast forward five years.  In 2012 Afredo began researching sweet wines, including fortified wines such as Sherry, Port, and Marsala.  Fortifying involves added a distilled wine (i.e., brandy) to the wine increasing alcohol content and adding sweetness.  What he found is that Marsala is created by boiling the wine – deliberately overheating it in a controlled manner.  Turns out, wine that is unintentionally overheated has a Marsala-like taste, so much so that in Italy it is said to be Marsalato – tastes like Marsala – and can be made into a wine suitable for cooking.  And off went the light bulb!
He went back to his spoiled wine and tasted it.  Sure enough, it had a Marsala-like taste but was very dry.  Now if he could just make it sweeter by adding a bit of grape juice.  Nope, not sweet enough.  He needed a more concentrated grape juice. 
There is another way to make a sweet wine that does not involve adding anything to the wine.  In Italy, Alfredo’s homeland (he’s from Naples), the method is called “passito”.  The grapes are picked when ripe and then put into a screened in area and allowed to dry out in the sun, greatly concentrating the sugars in the grapes.  So, if he were to squeeze some of these grapes and add the very sweet juice to his dry Marsala-like wine….
Eureka!  He added the very sweet juice from the dryed grapes to the spoiled Cabernet Sauvignon wine and turned it into a Marsala-like sweet wine.  Below is a picture of the wine and you can see the brown color.  Also note that the bottle is not full – my wife used it to make a rather fantastic Veal Marsala -- which led me to writing this blog.  By the way, he can’t label the wine “Marsala”.  Marsala is a registered trade name.

​You might ask what became of Afredo’s attempt at making sweet wine? I can attest that it was a great success.  Now I am not an afficionado of sweet wine, but I really have to say that his are really, really good.  My favorite is his first, Romantico, made using Aleatico grapes.  All made the Italian passito way.
Try it.  You’ll like it.

I’ve been to a number of wine-tasting classes or events over the many years – and believe me, I have many years.  I’ve learned how the look at the wine, how to properly smell it, how to hold the glass, and how to swirl/gargle the wine in my mouth to detect the proper flavors.  All very nice.  But there are some things that they never tell you that you really should know.  Here are some of the things that they don’t tell you:
Item 1:  serving temperature.  If you’ve followed this website, you already know what this first “things that they never tell you” is, namely, the optimum serving temperature of the wine.  As you can see on the chart shown below, the optimum serving temperature of wines is very much determined by the type of wine.  The great myth is that white wines are served chilled and red wines at room temperature.  As a result, most people serve their white wines too cold and red wines too warm.  It always amazes me that most wineries do not keep their red wines at the proper temperature.  You’d think that they would want to have you taste their wine at the optimum conditions.  After all, they are trying to get you to buy the wine…

​Item 2:  wine aging.  They never tell you if the wine should be aged any more, or if it is ready to drink.  Sure, the winemaker really can’t say for certain that his wine needs two more years of aging – I don’t really expect that – but he can indicate that the wine needs some aging, or, perhaps of greater importance, how long you can age it before it needs to be drunk.  It is important to remember that for most wines there is an optimum age.  In other words, you can overage a wine.  And yes, white wines change with age as well as reds – reds get lighter, whites darker – and in many cases the whites improve with age.  My wife and I are red wine drinkers, so white wines generally sit for long times in our chiller.  We were pleasantly surprised when we opened up a bottle of Chuparosa Albarino that we had forgotten about for a couple of years.  It was marvelous!  Naturally, the next time we visited there they were out of Albarino.
Item 3:  wine storage.  A corollary to item 2 is how to store the wine.  At least one winery we visited stored their wine at too high a temperature – 74 F – and hence all of it was spoiled.  From what I have read, wine should be stored horizontally at a uniform 55 F (hence the name of the storage company I am associated with – Chateau 55).  Along this same line, I’ve been to two wineries where the wine spoiled in the tasting room (see item 1 above) due to high temperatures.  So, while wine should be good at room temperature for a year or so, just a short time at high temperature can ruin the wine.  OK, that means you need to drink your wine quickly in the summer if you keep your house at 78 F.  I highly recommend a wine chiller.  If you need to buy one, go for the cheaper models.  The expensive units have rigid shelves that are too close together to handle wider bottles.  Just one such bottle will cause you to lose an entire row.  The cheap units (see mine below) have flimsy shelves that can handle the larger bottles if you store them backward.

​Item 4:  orange or brown wine.  They never tell you what a wine looks like if it is spoiled, so I will.  It will have a brown or orange tinge.  If it really gone, it will also be cloudy, with lots of suspended particles.  As noted above, I have run across the orange tinge three times at wineries.  The suspended particle wine was served to me at a friend’s house.  I believe the problem is the rate at which the tannins react with oxygen.  If the tannins in the wine oxidize slowly at low temperatures the solids come out of solution, leaving behind a very smooth wine with great complexity.  If they oxidize quickly or at high temperatures, the solid remain in solution and the wine tastes awful.
Item 5:  other bad wines.  Of course, the wine can turn into vinegar.  This is not very likely as most wines contain sulfites that kill the bacteria that can convert the alcohol into acetic acid (vinegar), and in general the bacteria are not going to get into the wine after it is in the bottle.  Another thing to look for is the cork rotting.  This can occur, and if it does the wine will be bad.  Which of course leads to restaurant wine tasting, i.e., why the server gives you the cork.  I always look at the cork to make sure that it is wet with the wine – the wine has been stored on its side – and to make sure it is not rotted.  Which leads to the stopper issue….
Item 6:  stoppers.  I use the term stoppers rather than corks because some wines do not use cork stoppers.  Alternatives are rubber and screw tops.  Cork is the standard because it allows a small amount of air to leak into the wine, allowing the tannins to age gradually.  Other soft stoppers – rubber, composites (cork or otherwise), or compound units – also serve in the same capacity.  But a screw top does not.  So, looking at the cork can tell you a lot about how long a wine should be aged.  If it has a screw top, it is ready to drink.  Doc Ed looks at the corks from another perspective – how highly the winemaker regards his wine.  If he uses cheap corks it sort of indicates that he doesn’t have a high regard for his wine.  You can read more about corks in our about section.

​Item 7:  phases.  I find it somewhat surprising that I’ve been taught in wine tasting classes how to hold the glass, swirl the wine, properly look at the wine color and clarity, and see to it that the wine reaches everywhere in my mouth, but never about the three “phases” of wine tasting.  These are the attack, the mid-palate, and the finish.  The attack is when the wine first enters the mouth, the mid-palate the taste while it lingers in the mouth, and finish is what you taste after you swallow or spit out the wine.  Actually, I’m not sure about what you taste after you spit out the wine…. 
So there you have it, a summary of the things that you are seldom if ever told when in a wine tasting class.  So, the next time you are tasting wine at a winery, ask what temperature you should serve the wine at.  Ask if the wine needs aging, and how long it should be aged.  Ask to look at the cork.  Oh, and make sure the wine isn’t orange….

​During this lockdown our wine reserves are dwindling.  Not that we are drinking more wine (well, maybe a little more), but all of the wine we are drinking is coming from our reserves.  So how are you faring?  If you are running low, many of the wineries are open for on-line business. In fact, this is a great time to purchase wine directly from the wineries.  Almost all of them are offering great deals on their wine.  I’m taking advantage of the low prices -- right now I’m waiting on a delivery of wine from Vineyard Grant James – six bottles of red wine (Nebbiolo, Sangiovese and Zinfandel) at $25 per bottle with free delivery.  These are typically priced in the $40 range.  Of course, buying now is a good way to help keep your favorite boutique wineries afloat.
Now if you do take advantage of the low wine prices, you may need extra space to store the wine.  If you live in San Diego north of interstate 8 you might want to look into Chateau 55.  The special deal still works if you go through this website – first month free and 5% discount for the next 11 months.  You get a key and a fob to allow you to access your wine whenever you want without worrying about getting the virus.  More important, perhaps, is that you can have the wine delivered directly to their facility and put into your storage locker so you don’t even have to deal with a delivery man.
The wineries are doing other things as well as selling wine, such as virtual wine tasting events and even Zoom wine pickup parties for their club members.  Remember that some of the best balsamic vinegars and olive oils are available from the wineries.  Wineries that have both include Orfila (though they are out of their red balsamic vinegar, my personal favorite, and I am really bummed out), Ponte (very good but the sell out quickly), Robert Renzoni, and Principe di Tricasse.  Speaking of Principe di Tricasse, they make a Marsala wine.  My wife made an outstanding veal marsala last night using their wine.  Hatfield Creek might be a place to visit without running into other people.  They have a maze that you can try to navigate.
Horror of horrors!  I just got a message from Grant James that my wine won’t get here until tomorrow!  Oh, well, I guess I have enough to make through another day or twenty….
Anyway, please take care.  And remember, you don’t have to drive anywhere….

​On the last day of our journey we rode through strawberry fields that seemed to go on forever to reach our final winery of the trip:  Cambria.  Cambria Estate Vineyard and Winery, located in Santa Maria, is not a boutique winery.  It is not a small winery.  It is a very big winery.  The strawberry fields became vineyards that stretched as far as the eye could see.

​Doc Ed had visited Cambria on his recent trip up to Santa Barbara, and highly recommended it.  At the end of the long drive we found a relatively small tasting room.  A bit of a surprise – I would have expected a larger facility for such a large winery.  Anyway, one large table filled a good part of the room, which was good because we had a large group and brought lunch.  See pictures of the tasting room below.

​We were there for the wine, of course, and, as you can see in the tasting menu, the only red wine they make is Pinot Noir.  Note that three of the five are pure clones of Pinot Noir.  Now I must confess that I cheated.  Yes, you heard me right, I cheated.  You see, Doc Ed brought back some of their wine, and, well, I tasted their Clone 23 Pinot Noir a few days before the trip.  Well, more than tasted it – I guess “guzzled” fits better.  More about Clone 23 below, but first a little bit about clones.

​Vineyards don’t start by planting seeds – just takes too much time for them to grow and you don’t really know what you are getting.  Rather, they plant vines.  If all of the vines have the exact same DNA – they all came from the same plant (usually by grafting) – then they are said to be “clones” of the original plant.  You can probably see where this is heading.  If I grow the vines from seeds, they will all have different DNA.  Some will grow well, but not produce good wine.  Some will struggle, but produce very good wine.  Others will grow well and produce good wine.  It all depends on the growing conditions.  Anyway, the best vines are cloned, and, if the clones are particularly good, given a name or number and made available to other vineyards.
Getting back to Cambria, they had five Pinot Noirs on their tasting menu, three of which were pure clones.  The first two mixed clone offerings were good.  Then we hit the third Pinot Noir, Clone 4, an outstanding example of a more-or-less classic Pinot Noir.  Clone 2A proved to be pretty good, though I really liked Clone 4 better.  Then we went to Clone 23.
Pinot Noir is a light red wine.  Indeed, I was told by one expert that you can tell if a Pinot Noir offering is pure Pinot Noir by trying to see your thumb at the bottom of the glass.  If you can see your thumb, it is a pure Pinot Noir.  He never met Clone 23.  It is a dark red – no way you can see your thumb.  Whatever the case, Cambria’s Clone 23 is outstanding.  But wait, didn’t I know this before I arrived at their tasting room?  Well, not exactly.  You see, Doc Ed had the 2015 vintage.  We were tasting the 2016 vintage.  The 2016 vintage is a bit fruitier, maybe even darker.  Honestly cannot say which I like better.  Anyway, we bought bottles of Clone 4 and Clone 23 2016 vintages, and some Clone 23 2015 vintage for Doc Ed.  Oh, and some of our group tasted the whites – and loved them.
Wine club is a three-tiered system, requiring 12, 18, or 36 bottles per year in three shipments for 15%, 20%, or 25% discounts, respectively.  All memberships include free wine tasting for up to six people.  Members can customize their purchases.

​After our experience at Babcock, we headed up the road to Paso Robles and set up camp.  Well, not really set up camp.  I mean, it was a pretty nice air bnb we stayed in.  OK, so we didn’t rough it….  Anyway, the next morning we resumed seeking out more altars to Bacchus, more of the nectar of the gods.
Seeking clues to the native habits, our first stop was at a farmer’s market in the center of town.  It was raining a bit (just a drizzle, actually), but as were still in California it was enough to keep the natives indoors.  So we headed out to seek liquid sustenance.
Our second stop was at a place called Seven Oxen.  Much to our surprise, she was ready for us! How could she know we would be stopping there?  Someone had to have tipped her off.  Could it have been someone from the farmer’s market that we visited?  Not likely – we were the only ones there on that cold, rainy morning.  Perhaps someone from the first winery we visited?  No, they were too busy trying to sell us their mediocre wine.  No, it had to be someone from our group of intrepid explorers.  But who?

​And was she ever ready – not only did she have wine ready, but cheese and salads and flat bread pizzas (delivered from the distillery next door), individually to our order!  And there is was – right on the wine pairing menu.  A name – Frances.  It had to be one of group, Frances, aka, Charo, who had blown our cover – and, by the way, placed our lunch orders.  We were shocked!  OK, we weren’t really shocked – we had given her our orders -- but it makes for a good story, no?

​Seven Oxen is an Estate winery, but the winery itself is far removed from the vineyards, located in a commercial park.  The facility is nice, but lacks the nice outdoor seating and view of “country” wineries.

​As for their wines, the Grenache is quite nice – and this comes from someone who really doesn’t care for Grenache.  The others were good as well, and then there was the Tannat.  This was my first time tasting this particular varietal, and, well, I really, really liked it.  Bought some!

​They have two levels of wine club.  Level 1 requires purchase of 6 bottles every six months (12 bottles/year) at a 15% discount.  Level 2 is double that number of bottles at a 30% discount.  The discounts are good for other purchases from the winery, and for both levels wine tasting for two is complementary.

​We left Melville with the feeling that we needed more, but could we, dare we, go off the beaten path? Only a short deviation, perhaps, just across the way?  Yes, we would do it…
And there we were, standing in front of a large barn-like structure, an open doorway to another world.  Then we read the sign on the giant door – “Carpe Diem” – and we had to enter.  In front of us, on the far side of the room, was an altar to Bacchus.  Another altar sat far to our right.  We neither walked forward or turned right.  Rather, pulled by the allure of some strange music, we turned left into what could have easily been Pan’s Labyrinth.  And soon we found what was pulling us into this maze.  No, not Pan’s flute or the call of the Sirens, no, it was something far more powerful.  You see, they had taken those old records off the shelf!!!

​Reminiscing about those days of old, we wandered the maze.  Finally overcome by our great desire to again taste the nectar of the gods, we made our way to Bacchus’ altar on the far side of the room.  The nectar was there, and we tasted of it – Chardonnay, Grenache, and Pinot Noir, lots and lots of Pinot Noir.  We retreated to a comfortable nesting place not far from the altar, leaving only to refill our drinking vessels.

​But I was not satisfied.  I knew there had to be more, so I begged the priestess serving us for more.  More she had, poured from a black bottle, a dark red elixir, complex, fruity, with nice tannins, smooth as silk.  Cabernet Sauvignon was the name on the bottle.  I called over my fellow explorers, and they in turn tasted this wondrous liquor.  So good it was that we made an offering of plastic to the priestess, and she, in turn, gave us many bottles to help us along on our journey.
You may ask what god made these wondrous elixirs?  Well, his name was on the bottle:  Babcock.  Fortunately, Babcock is not stingy with his elixirs.  One can make offerings of gold, silver or plastic to obtain 2-6 bottles per quarter of a year, with savings of 20 or 25%.
Our thirst satiated, we left the wonders of Babcock, stopping only to take many, many pictures.  Then it was on to dinner and then northward, to explore other venues where we might find more of the wonderful nectar of the gods….

​Doc Ed did some scouting for us, hitting the wineries in the Santa Barbara area.  One of the wineries that he loved was Melville Winery, so we stopped there first on our way north.  As expected, it was well worth the visit.  Melville is located in Lompoc, on a main road going through the northern row of Lompoc wineries.  Very nice facility, with outside seating and a nice view – see pictures below.

​The tasting room is quite comfortable, but only had high chairs for seating – not my favorite set up.  Water available, but one had to buy munchies if so inclined.  Pictures of the inside follow.

​All of their wines are estate.  You can select tasting from one of two menus, a $15 dollar one and a $20 dollar one, though they don’t necessarily hold you to either one.  Menus are shown below.  I must admit to being a little perturbed by the winery.  You see, here they had some really great wines – in particular one super Pinot Noir – yet they served them at room temperature, which, while nice for the visitors was not particularly nice to the wines.  I just don’t understand why they didn’t serve them at the right temperature, especially their Pinot Noirs which really need to be served in the 55-60 F range.

​Now on to the most important thing, the wine.  Unlike many wineries, they pay particular attention to the clones, both of their Pinot Noir and their Syrah.  Attention to such details results in some pretty good wines.  For example, their Anna’s Pinot Noir is a mix of two clones – 667 and 114.  And it is fermented with the stems!  The result is a very, very good wine – which, not surprisingly, I am not the first to notice.  It was rated 96 by Wine Enthusiast!
But it wasn’t the highest rated.  That award goes to their Donna’s Syrah.  A mix of two clones – Estrella and 1 – it has a nice high black pepper, and was rated a 97 by Wine Enthusiast!  Bought some!!!  I really like the black pepper in wines, but to date only had Zinfandels with such high black pepper notes.  Also of note is their mixed clone Estate Pinot Noir – really good wine for the price.  Bought one of those as well.
The winery has three club levels – Premier Cru, Grand Cru, and Monopole – requiring purchase of 9, 18, and 36 bottles a year (in three sets), with 15, 20, and 25% discounts and 2, 4, and 8 free tastings per month.  Grand Cru membership limited to 600, Monopole limited to 200, so there is some exclusivity in joining the higher-level clubs.