June 27, 2020 visit to Orfila

​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…