Salerno Winery

This is a nice place to enjoy some pizza, drink some wine and listen to live music during the day. The only reason for the three star review is because they offer a delicious port called «Temptation» 2006. Otherwise it would be a two star review. The quality of the wine has decreased since the winery was sold. Herman and his wife still live on the property but no longer own the winery.
My wife is a wine club member but received call from their office asking if she was a member because they were missing her paperwork. This was an unpleasant call that we had to deal with on a Sunday afternoon. My wife will be cancelling her membership after our next pick-​up.

We went to this winery because I had purchased a groupon and figured that would be a great way too explore the winery. We got 2 tastings and a order of bread. There were a couple of wines we liked, however, nothing we were crazy about. It was a little chilly outside, and they had propane tanks with heaters on them. We felt at times we were forgotten about. We didn’t like how the main focus through our visit was to get us into the wine club. We’re new in the area and want to try everything before we commit. And as stated earlier, we weren’t very excited about their wines. It’s close to our home which is nice, but, we won’t be going back.

I’m so bummed to be writing this review, but I’m terribly disappointed with my recent experiences with Salerno Winery. We have been wine club members with them for nearly 3 years, and have always loved their wines and their lovely winery. However, the owners, Herman and Rose, are no longer managing the winery, and the new management is truly terrible. The wines are not as good, the food is definitely not as good, and the service — OMG it is the absolute worst.
We regularly brought our family up to Salerno for pizza and wine and good times, but starting in the summer of 2014, things got weird. We showed up, and no pizza was available, just store-​bought salad, bread and lasagna? Weird. And weirder — wouldn’t that be a great thing to put on your web site, or maybe tell your wine club members about? Sadly, this strange disconnect of service happened three more times! They got the pizza going, but suddenly didn’t allow dogs (again, no notice, although they did send out notice a month AFTER they stopped allowing dogs.) Then we showed up once and the pizza was really awful, and took 40 minutes to get to us. The only good thing that came out of this was that, hungry and irritated and having promised our group a nice time at a winery, we found Cordiano winery reasonably close by and were able to salvage our afternoons.
Throughout all of this, we maintained our wine club membership, and hoped one day they might return to their former glory. Then, out of the blue, they literally stopped sending my wine shipments in July of this year, but continued to bill me! When I called and emailed asking what was up, no one ever responded (and I was quite persistent, as people tend to be when you bill them for nothing!) I finally gave in and called the credit card company to charge the transactions back and then wouldn’t you know it, someone called. That started a 6 week long process of promises that they’d deliver the back order of wine. I finally gave up. And just a note here — they continued billing me for two more months of shipments that also never came. Everything else here might have fallen apart, but their billing system is top notch!
It’s really sad to see what Herman and Rose created fall apart so terribly. And it’s even worse to have one of our favorite places to visit so badly managed that it’s an exercise in frustration to go there. If you’re considering this winery for a visit, reconsider — the older reviews reflect a better time, when Salerno stood for great wine, warm, comfortable ambiance and good service. I sure miss that place!

Wow. I was hoping this place was going to be better from the previous reviews. We arrived to their nice grounds on a Sunday afternoon. We were approached by an employee who said she’d be right back and we waited 20+ minutes for someone to show up. Eventually someone else came to help us to our wine tasting /​flights. Since we read the reviews — ordered a pizza (TAKE NOTE: they no longer have their brick oven. supposedly Ramona made them remove it).
The wine was hardly acceptable. Everything tasted overly alcoholic or underaged. ugh. it just wasn’t right. I think the Pinot was the best. Everything else was just funky. Usually when wines are blended, they harshness of certain varieties is smoothed out by another. It just wasn’t working here.
The pizza? wow. $ 19 for a margherita pizza was absolutely a disappointment and i agree w/​the other review of frozen store bought quality pizza. Cordiano or Fillipis offers a way better pie for much less.
Glad we finally stopped by this place but will continue on to the other Ramona wineries in the future. If youre going here — get the Unilocal check in for the ²⁄₁ tasting.

Gets better every time we visit! Of course we found wonderful variety of wines — flights, glasses, bottles, cases (and the sangria, which was my favorite). Italian bread and cheesy pizza are absolutely delicious. There’s a beautiful view. Temperatures are cooler than the rest of Ramona, given the elevation. Patio has umbrella for every table so you can sun or stay in the shade. Italian opera singers plus other tunes and attentive waiters top the list of positives. Two dogs wander throughout, calm as can be. Bocce ball court for fun — and a huge set of sculptures and statues in a great walking garden. Enjoy!

This pains me to write but I’m really disappointed in my experience with Salerno.
My husband and I decided to do a day wine trip to Ramona and check out the local wine spots. After mapping out where we were going to go, we decided to end the day at Salerno, and it was actually the spot we were looking most forward to.
Now having experienced it, I wish we would have avoided it at all costs.
Strolled in around 3 pm, hungry and eager to try one of their pizzas and hang out on the patio. When we drove up, we immediately noticed the beautiful grounds, the lovely patio, and all the monuments.
The winery makes for a beautiful stroll up and down their vineyards checking out all the interesting statues they have.
We made our way up to the patio, took a seat at a table, and enjoyed the scenery. We were greeted by a young man who brought us a wine menu and a food menu. He proceeded to tell us that out of the 12+ wines they have, they only had 6 available (5 reds and 1 white). We both ordered two tasting flights– which are four tasters for $ 10 and The Works Pizza ($ 25!)
My husband took the dogs for a walk around the grounds while I waited at our table for the wine and pizza. He was gone for about 20 minutes, and by the time he got back from his walk, our server still hadn’t brought us our wine flights. I was getting a little agitated, especially considering that there were only two other tables filled out of the whole winery. Looking around, there were dirty tables from people who have come and gone. Over 25 minutes, we finally get our wine flight, and our pizza arrives shortly after. We immediately noticed that one of my husband’s tasters had an oily film on top of it. We flagged our server down and asked him about it, and he simply said «Oh, it’s supposed to be like that.» I’ve never seen oily wine, so I doubt it was «supposed» to be like that, but we just left it at that.
The wine was nothing to write home about, in fact, the port and pinot noir were wayyy too «syrupy» so I didn’t even finish them.
The pizza on the other hand, was cold and honestly tasted like it was from the frozen food section in the grocery store. I seriously cannot justify paying $ 25.00 for it. That’s like Downtown San Diego/​Gaslamp prices! Absolutely outrageous. We both ate a slice and were over it. We tried to find out server, but of course he was nowhere in sight. My husband walked up to the bar around, only to find the server sitting down at a table eating. We paid and left.
It’s a shame that their wine is less than mediocre, the pizza is cold and lacks flavor, and the service is absolutely horrible. The only thing I enjoyed about this place is the grounds. Needless to say, I won’t be back.

We held a small wedding reception (14-​just family) at this winery. We’re locals (live in Ramona), and we love the local wineries and enjoy visiting them, which is why we decided to hold my Uncles wedding reception at one of them.
PROS:
1. Victoria, our waitress. She was cheerful, funny and without her, the day would have been a disaster (see the CONS)
2. The wine. The Petite Syrah and Serenado are the best of the reds. Lovely.
3. The grounds. GORGEOUS, and why we picked this winery for the reception and after-​wedding pictures. It’s one of the best stature gardens we’ve ever seen
CONS:
1. The new manager, Veronica. In a word: Incompetent. I know that sounds harsh but there is no other word.
When we originally booked this winery for our small party of 14 people, we worked with Lloyd. He was professional, took notes, and had great suggestions. From what I understand, they let him go because they thought he cost too much money and gave the job to Veronica.
We met with her and she took no notes at all. She got the date of the reception wrong – she thought it was a week earlier.
We met with her again the day before the reception, placed the food and wine order (wrote it down for her) and the number of people attending. She called me the next day (the day of) and said we were set for next week. Seriously. I can’t even…
So, we showed up and she had the table set for 10 people-​not 14. Two of our guests ended up elsewhere and she was oblivious.
2. The pizza – they shut down the wood-​fired pizza oven now it’s cooked in a regular over. If I wanted that, I could stay home.
All in all, we won’t go back. The negatives were too many.

We arrived on a busy day at peak rush when the serving staff was overwhelmed with the crowd of thirsty patrons. Table service was dysfunctional, so after 30 minutes of being ignored I walked to the bar to order directly. We saw customers leave in frustration after waiting an hour without being acknowledged by serving staff. My wife received her sampler 1 hour after we arrived. Regrettably, they had only one white wine — room temperature Riesling — because they had run out of Chardonnay. They ran out of clean glasses, perhaps because tables were not bussed promptly after customers left.
The Port wine and fresh Sangria are yummy. Live music. Gardens filled with statuary beckoning for a stroll. Parking was tight because it was busy. Dog friendly. Nice view, and nice breeze.
When I was standing at the bar hoping to order, I noticed that one of the boat anchors that slowed down serving staff was a requirement to enter each sample into their Point Of Sale computer, transcribing the customer ticket into the computer through a laborious touch-​screen menu that required the server to log into the computer and took about 1 minute to enter each ticket. Sixty customers x 1 minute computer delay per customer put the serving staff an hour behind schedule. Unlike other wineries, this serving staff could not simply pour and serve because they were burdened with a data entry requirement with no obvious purpose.

This place is AMAZING! Love, love, love the food, wine and owners! Amazing atmosphere, cute dogs and friendly staff.

The winery place is nice, but customer service is terrible. I just called their number and the lady who answered flat out hung up on me! Where is the business etiquette? I said nothing rude and just asked a couple of questions.

This winery is very beautiful, the time and details gone into the art collections are worth the visit. The entire staff was very welcoming and friendly.
I didn’t expect such delicious pizza, it took a long time to arrive but worth the wait.
I am only rating three stars because our wine was a bit off the day of our visit, I had some concern for the minimal carbonation in the wine and a possible corked serving.
You must check out the sculptures and go there during the weekend, excellent music (Italian style) with piano player.
I plan to stop by again and give them another try.

It was decent experience. The winery has a fascinating and eclectic décor with several unique sculptures. If you’re a lover of pizza they have a wide variety of good, well made items. The wine is hit or miss, which is the focus of the visit. Of the five wines we tried I’d say one was good and one was passable. It’s very Temecula like in the quality, so if you enjoy that region you’ll probably have a good time. However, if you’re a wine enthusiast you won’t be particularly happy.

Lloyd opened up on a Friday for us to do a tasting. The grounds are beautiful with great gardens. My girlfriends and I came out from the East Coast to visit a friend in San Diego. It was nice of him to do that for us and he showed us around. We had a pleasant visit! The wines were awesome!

I really loved the friendly and warm service here, the winery is gorgeous and I like the dogs they own coming around to say hello.
Delicious pizza, wonderful music on weekends, I felt like we were in a lil piece of Italy for a second.
Everyone I came in contact with was extremely sweet and sincere.
I am only rating three stars because the white wine seemed flawed at time of my visit.
Some fizz in the white shot glass which shouldn’t bubble.
Willing to give it another try, the winery is gorgeous and maybe I had a bad bottle.
To their defense, I didn’t bring this to their attention as they were incredibly busy and our pizza alone took almost an hour (they were super graceful and even discounted it), the pizza was totally worth the wait.
I feel the choice for large shot glasses for wine tasting is a bit odd, a shot glass will not allow the aromas of their wines to emerge, you cant avoid the heat from your hands coming in contact with the shot glasses, hard to appreciate color, not sure I can get on board with the shot glasses.

Amazing atmosphere, views, people… Delicious wine, pizza, desserts… No better place to spend a Saturday B-​day afternoon with friends! We loved it and had a blast!!! :-)

Fantastic back country gem! Outstanding service and fun, unique atmosphere! Great wines, great food, and great spirited folks! Courtney is the best!!!

Called asking about hours apparently after hours and some asshole answered and word for word said «what gives you the idea we would be open right now» and just started laughing about how rude they were… wtf? Obviously don’t know their hours hence the call and why even answer if you’re closed and not gonna be helpful in any way. Never even going to bother going to an establishment with such terrible service like this before ever even stepping foot there.

Not a very good experience. Pizza poor. Only one Salad on menu. No cheese plate. They said they ran out, but it was noon. Waitress was rude and not helpful. Wine tasting is presented on a board, with four glasses, they dont even tell you what they are. Owner and manager asked for feedback then defended. The garden looks ok, lots of statues. But wine not good except one Petite Syrah that was acceptable. Not worth the trip. It was raining so we were in a hangar of sorts, but that doesn’t explain the service or attitude.

What a wonderful experience. We came here by recommendation from a friend and we are so glad that we did. We all had a full wine tasting, pizza, and the cannoli’s. Everything was amazing! I’m so glad I got to share this place with my father who is in town visiting. The server, Denise, was knowledgeable about all the wines and has impeccable customer service skills. We had a chance to meet Mr. and Mrs. Salerno, what a sweet couple! We got to exchange stories with her and really enjoyed her company.

This was an interesting stop on our way home from Julian.
We decided to try this winery as it looked open and airy.
For the atmosphere I give this place 5 stars! Great seating and amazing views.
Take a walk around the property and notice all of the sculptures and the awesome chess board.
Service I give 4 stars. They were extremely busy the day we went and only had one server.
Wine I give 1 star. Sorry :(
I was not a fan of any of their wine. The finishes were extremely harsh on all of them.
We did a tasting and our tastings came in shot glasses– not a wine glass.
We did not eat therefore I cannot review the food.