Eagles Nest Winery is located in the scenic rural Ramona Valley and is one of San Diego County's most unique luxury wine tourism destinations. Be sure to ask us about the benefits of our Eagles Nest Wine Club!

The Owners and Winemakers

Eagles Nest Winery is family owned and operated by Dennis and Julie Grimes. The winery and a portion of our vineyards are located on our gated country estate overlooking the west Ramona Valley .

We have great respect for education, hard work, and practical experience. We have studied winemaking and vinticulture with world reknown University of California, Davis. We are technology professionals and both veterans, Dennis is a U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis) graduate and retired from a career in Naval Aviation (P-3 Orion aircraft) and Julie served with the U.S. Army.

In parallel lives, Julie’s a highly regarded Computer Science professsor at local college, where she earned national design awards, teaching e-Commerce and Internet design and Dennis is a senior program manager and Systems Engineer with the Federal government, and a former, now part-time college IT/Business professor. Many of the college science faculty enjoy assisting us at the winery during their off hours.

We invite you to experinece our wines, the full winemaking experience and the scerene beauty of our private gated estate including the Winery, vineyards, and stunningly beautiful vacation accomodations that share unsurpassed views of the West Ramona Valley. Rest assured, there is truly nothing quite like Eagles Nest (please see Guest Comments under Guests tab above).

Our Winemaking Philosophy

As a Boutique winery we take great personal pride our intimate hands-on style of winemaking. We are an industry member of The Wine Institute, American Society for Enology and Viticulture, amd yes the Farm Bureau! Our focus is making only quality wine. Our estate vineyards, quality sourcing, and hands-on winemaking give us complete control over the quality of the grapes going into our wines. And as the saying goes "Quality wines begin with quality wine-grapes."

Our red wine varietals include Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Merlot, Tempranillo, the Rhone staple Syrah/Shriaz, and others. Our white varietals include the popular Rhone varietal Viognier, and we are experimenting with Picpoul Blanc and others. We are continually researching quality varietals that compliment the Ramona Valley for future vineyards and meet our customer's needs.

Making fine wine is both an Art and a Science

How we maintain our quality:

• Make our wines by hand in small releases to allow close monitoring of quality and nuances of each vintage year harvest & grape varietal
• Use carefully selected equipment including bladder presses to gently press our grape must - avoiding excess tannins caused by crushed grape seeds and mashed skins
• Operate under sanitary, temperature controlled conditions to maintain quality - we encourage visitors to tour and inspect our facilities
• Close hands-on monitoring of each barrel during the fermentation and aging process
• Close monitoring of vital wine chemistry

Community Giving - Enjoy out custom artwork labels featuring community service organizations. Eagles Nest takes great satisfaction in the opportunity to support community service, charitable, and industry organizations. We donate, or have donated our personal time, services, product, and facilities to these worthy organizations that benefit and better our community and enrich lives.

Eagles Nest is a regular and generous contributor to area charities and organizations including:

• Intermountain Fire and Rescue
• Ramona Trails Association
• Ramona CDF Air Show
• Ramona Garden Club
• Wildlife Research Institute
• Area Religious Organizations
• San Diego Amateur Winemakers Society

We actively encourage and support quality winemaking practices and the sharing of enology knowledge, as well as ethical and responsible business practices through our current and past Business and Professional memberships in:

• San Diego County Farm Bureau
• American Society for Enology and Viticulture
• The Wine Institute
• Ramona Chamber of Commerce
• Julian Chamber of Commerce
• Ramona Valley Vineyard Association
• Ramona Valley Winery Association
• San Diego County Vintners Association

We warmly welcome you to Eagles Nest Cottage and welcome your return visits

Ciao! - Welcome to Eagles Nest Winery!

Eagles Nest Vineyards & Winery Cottage is a premium one-of-a kind luxury Bed and Breakfast, Vacation Cottage and some consider it to be an ideal Inn. This venue is nestled amongst natural granite bolders, high on a hill adjacen to an operating vineyards and boutique winery. The Cottage is new construction but features a distinctive craftsman architecture combined with an olde world wine theme and luxury antiques. Extensively landscaped, the entrance patio features an 3-tier classic Italian fountain filling the area with the soothings sound of dancing water.

Envisioned as luxury vacation home venue for a romantic or private getaway for couples and wine lovers, Eagles Nest Bed & Breakfast Vacation Cottage provides breathtaking views combined with high-end amenities that range from the selected antique furnishings, to the natural stone finished bath with oversized heated Jacuzzi tub, and a premium full-sized gourmet stainless and granite kitchen. Adjacent to the winery's crush pad, barrel room, and wood-fired pizza oven, and above one of the vineyards and next door to the winery - the cottage is immersed in the wine making lifestyle and private tours of the winery and vineyards are always offered as a special treat to our guests.

The amenity list includes European antique furnishings, deluxe pillow-top queen bed with premium 600 thread count linens and décor bedding, flat screen with cable, DVD player, DVD library, selected wine and travel books, stereos with iPod docks (bring your IPod!!!), web access is available. The deluxe full-sized refrigerator is stocked with complimentary pre-packaged foods, beverages, and ice for your enjoyment. The non-smoking cottage features non-allergenic plank flooring that is maintained with a steam floor cleaner between visits.

Outdoors, a premium high-BTU stainless gas grill for cooking, quartz patio heater, generous sized premium outdoor furniture on the patios, and an expansive northeasterly facing view deck that sheltering you from the sun but enabling gentle prevaing westerly breezes.

During your stay at Eagles Nest Vineyards & Winery, your Bed & Breakfast stay at our vacation cottage will be enhanced while you enjoy visiting Ramona Valley AVA Wineries

The Winery:

Eagles Nest Winery is located at the western end of Ramona Valley AVA between the historic gold mining town of Julian, and the city of San Diego. The property is situated high on a hill overlooking the scenic Ramona valley. On a clear day, you can see the Mount Palomar, the Laguna and Cuyamaca Mountains. To the west ans south you can see Mount Woodson and Iron Mountain. Elevations on the property range from approximately 1300 feet to over 1600 feet.

Eagles Nest Winery's focus is on excellence and a commitment to sustainable farming practices. Our wines express our attention to terrior and a respect for the environment. The vineyards maintained by Eagles Nest Winery are located in several locations in the Ramona Valley, and South Coast AVAs.

Depending upon the terrain, the vines are trained to either a vertical shoot position (VSP) Trellis System or are Head Pruned/Trained. Eagles Nest initially planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Tempranillo, Viognier and Zinfandel and other varietals.

We harvest our estate grapes when their winemaking conditions are optimum, taking into consideration the following brix and acid levels, the soil, exposure, elevation, and grape varietal. We believe the role of the winemaker is to allow the wine to fulfill its terroir-determined destiny. Our winemaking choices during the two-year evolution from grape cluster to bottle respects the natural winemaking process.

We hand-pick the grapes in the early morning to ensure cool clusters from the previous night's low temperatures. The cool grapes are then de-stemmed by using a stainless steel crusher destemmer. Any remaining bits of stem are removed by hand to reduce any possible vegetative tendencies in the wine as we move it to our fermentation bins.

We then use carefully selected yeasts that tolerate the temperatures and alcohol levels of the fermentation process and that yield the best wine characteristics. Fermentation lasts about one week to ten days followed by any extended post fermentation maceration that may be desirable. The wine is then pressed in gentle bladder presses, and racked in due course to improve the clarity and flavor characteristics of the wine.

Bacteria metabolize malic acid in barrel after harvest and over the winter. Allowing secondary fermentation to take place in barrel results in a seamless integration of oak and wine tannins.

We age our red wines in natural oak barrels to impart desirable oak characteristics that compliment the grape varietals, and our white wines are processed in stainless tanks to preserve their delicate characteristics.