Mahogany Mountain

Mahogany Mountain is a small winery located in Ramona.  While there is a sign for the winery on route 67, the winery is not close to the highway.  Oh, and it is on a mountain, about 1500 feet above sea level.  As seen in the photos below, they have a very nice facility with a great view and outside seating.  This is pretty much a visit-and-drink wine place, i.e., they don’t have a restaurant or entertainment.  But it is not a bad place to visit-and-drink wine.

The tasting room is quite nice as well, with a very interesting décor and plenty of seating.  It was a chilly day when I visited, so I don’t know how the tasting room fares in the summer heat.  The winery has been around since the mid-90’s, but like most of the wineries in Ramona is open only on Saturday and Sunday for wine tasting.  All of the wines are estate grown.  Fortunately, they do not pump gas in the tasting room....

As you can see in the wine tasting menu below, their wines have won awards, so this is a quality winery.  Among the wines listed are their 2009 and 2010 Zinfandels.  This afforded me the chance to see what difference a year makes.  I had seen this before with Pinot Noir’s up in the Solvang area, where the 2007 vintage was way better than the 2008.  In this case, the server and I agreed that the 2010 wine tasted better than the 2009.  They have another varietal that I had not tasted before – Petit Verdot.  Can’t say I liked it, which may explain why it is not all that common as a stand-alone.

They have a wine club which requires members to purchase just six bottles per year in three two-bottle offerings.  Price for these six is 20% off retail or a special wine club price, since not all of the wines that go to the wine club are offered to the general public.  Wine club members get free tasting for two every time they visit the winery.