SAN DIEGO – Co-owners Laurie Wagner and Ian Vaux had various reasons for opening Turtle Rock Ridge Wine Bar in La Jolla.
Mostly, however, it’s because they truly love the product they’re growing and marketing — and because they wish to share the fruit of their vines with others.
A quarter-century ago, the pair of horticulturalists invested in a vineyard winery in Ramona after visiting vineyards overseas in Italy.
On May 10, they expanded out of their Ramona base, opening a wine bar at 1261 Prospect St. in La Jolla to introduce their locally grown and produced wine.
And they found an ideal spot in a nostalgic building next to a cafe right on the coast.
“This was mostly clothing shops,” said Vaux of their new retail space, noting they own a nearly 10-acre vineyard in Ramona, where their wines are produced.
The couple both started, met in fact, in a related but different business.
“She loved working with nurseries, and I started working with nurseries when I was 16,” Vaux said.
“I had transferred into wholesale sales by the time I was 25, selling to the nurseries. She was one of my customers, and I met her 10 years before we got together. Ten years later, we started helping each other out with where we were going in the future. And 33 years later — here we are.”
The couple’s Ramona winery was named for a huge, distinctive rock resembling a tortoise head. “It’s a turtle rock that happened to be on a ridge overlooking San Diego Country Estates with views out to the Cuyamaca Mountains,” said Vaux.
Vaux and Wagner were impressed by the wine culture when they were in Europe, where wine drinking is an intimate part of the lifestyle woven intricately into the fabric of living. He noted Europeans, in moderation, consume wine throughout the day without ill effects.
Wagner pointed out that April to October is the grape-growing season in San Diego County. She added that the grapes are typically harvested in August and September, and noted their wine products are also aged.
“Some of our wines are 10 years old,” she said. “Aging kind of rounds [the wine] out and smooths it, like everything becomes better with age.”
Added Wagner: “We like our ratio of oak to liquid in a 58-gallon barrel that we use. We have different barrels that we use, but all are made from white oak, and the region that they’re grown in affects the tightness of the grains in the wood, depending on the moisture. And you get the flavors from that.”
Turtle Rock is a boutique winery. “A boutique winery is considered something smaller than a winery,” Wagner said. “A small winery makes 5,000 cases a year. We make half that.”
Vaux revealed a surprising secret about the domestic wine industry. “Eighty-five percent of customers, especially here in California, are women, and they have a little different palate than men do,” he pointed out.
Wagner said they sell only wine because their grape-growing license is “only for what we make” in Ramona.
“Our wine is made with love,” Wagner said. “Wine brings you a sense of comfort, of relaxation. It makes you happy.”
“It’s a legal sedative where you don’t have to have a doctor,” said Vaux.
“We’re doing this because we like it,” said Wagner about their wine business. “We want to be here.”
Turtle Rock Ridge Wine Bar
Where: 1261 Prospect St.
Hours: 1-6 p.m. on weekdays, 1-8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Info: turtlerockridge.com.
