Ramona, CA

Ramona fills the Santa Maria Valley in San Diego County's backcountry, roughly 1,400 feet up, where State Routes 67 and 78 cross. Poway lies to the west, the Laguna Mountain foothills climb to the east, and the unincorporated town of about 21,000 serves as the trading center for a wide ring of ranches. The place has reinvented its farm economy more than once. Settled on the old Rancho Valle de Pamo grant, it was first called Nuevo and took the name Ramona in 1886 from Helen Hunt Jackson's novel. By the 1930s it was billed as the Turkey Capital of the World, egg ranches followed, and today the valley grows avocados, citrus and, increasingly, wine grapes. The Town Hall, an 1894 adobe on the National Register, and the Verlaque House, home to the Guy B. Woodward Museum, anchor the old town. Wine is what draws most visitors now. The valley became an American Viticultural Area in 2006, and a long list of small wineries now sits on the slopes around town. Woof'n Rose pours estate Cabernet Franc on a veranda above its vines on weekends, and the Pamo Valley Winery tasting room on Main Street won the town's best wine poll in 2025. Open land surrounds the town. Ramona Grasslands County Preserve, west of town on Highland Valley Road, protects nearly 3,900 acres of grassland, vernal pools and oak groves along Santa Maria Creek, with loop trails and habitat for golden eagles and burrowing owls. Out at Ramona Airport, Classic Rotors keeps a volunteer-run collection of vintage helicopters. Housing is mostly single-family, much of it built after 1970, spreading from the in-town streets out to ranch parcels, groves and horse property. Neighboring San Diego Country Estates, a planned community to the southeast, is part of the same Ramona Unified school district. Distance is the tradeoff. Commutes to the coast or downtown San Diego are long, both highways funnel all traffic, and the valley lived through both the Cedar Fire in 2003 and the Witch Fire in 2007. For all the new tasting rooms, Ramona still runs on the rhythm of a farm valley, with weekends split between chores on the property and a glass of something grown a few miles away.