Carruth Cellars Urban Winegarden & Cheese Shop

On our lists of the best wine bars and live music venues in San Diego.

A 2010 urban winery in Solana Beach was the prototype: buy high-quality fruit from Northern California, then crush, ferment, and age it in San Diego instead of shipping finished wine down. The Liberty Station location scaled that up with a garden patio big enough that the total footprint runs closer to 15,000 square feet than its listed 12,000, with plants moved over from the Little Italy tasting room to fill it in. A cheese shop sits alongside the pours, stocked for picnic baskets that guests can carry into the parks around Liberty Station. The BDX, a co-fermented blend of four or five Bordeaux varietals, is the pick winemaker Adam Carruth reaches for himself, and summer weekends bring live bands out onto the patio.