Rancho Capistrano Winery

If you want one of the best afternoons in Orange County, RCW is the place for great wine, cool bar and outdoor patio in old SJC. Ask for Chelsea… or Ally, Cameron, Casey, Amanda, Devon, Michelle… or Kyle the owner and Kylie the winemaker. Thank you, guys. I work overseas and I am only home in California one week per month and my wife and I love RCW.

Arrived on a Saturday night with a group of 10 clients. Table was ready exactly on time and the service was great, despite a packed house. Cheese plate, strawberry flatbread, and sweet potato fries were all terrific. Poke entrée salad, beef stroganoff and steak salad were excellent. Great patio, great service, and very good food on a busy night.

Best restaurant is San Juan! Sit by the fire, enjoy the ambiance, have a drink, eat some really good food, living large! We had the fish tacos, Brussels sprouts (sensational) and a chicken salad. A bottle of wine later and we were so fine!

Quickly becoming our go to favorite. Outstanding food and a great wine selection. First time I have ever seen my wife order a second glass of wine anywhere. Kyle, the owner, and his staff are attentive to your every need. I highly recommend.

I love my little neighborhood winery and I am very pleased to be a member. Yesterday, I brought a friend to the winery and was charged for a beer flight. Last week, I was not charged and was told that my membership covered the beer flight. So now I’m sitting here, scratching my head, wondering whether I was incorrectly charged or not. I am fine with the beer flight not being included, but there should be some consistency.
I am also not a huge fan of the fact that the «Kyle’s Cabernet» is not at least partially included in the membership. I understand it’s a so called «top shelf» wine, but we should only be made to pay for the additional cost of the premium wine. IE standard wine is $ 12.00 a glass, Kyle’s is $ 17.00, we should pay the difference. Simple.
All in all its a great place with wonderful food and a great atmosphere. A true diamond in the rough. I just wish that the staff could get on the same page on what is and isn’t included in the membership. Poor training from the upper echelon if you ask me.

I came in for Father’s Day and Megan was our server. She had great suggestions, the pork chops were amazing!

I took my sister-​in-​law here last weekend for her birthday lunch date, and we could not have been more pleased. We had originally planned to go to two other wine bars that we had already heard of, but one didn’t open until four and the other was closed for father’s day. So we were thrilled to stumble upon this place accidentally. The outdoor patio looked gorgeous, but it was really hot out, so we chose to stay inside. We each had the wine flight and then we shared the strawberry bruschetta and the cheese board.
The Wine:
While we may not be expert wine aficionados, we thoroughly enjoyed all five wines in the flight (the Bella – a buttery chardonnay – and the pinot noir were my two favorites). Afterward, we sampled the peach chardonnay which we also liked. It probably wouldn’t be to everyone’s liking given the sweetness, but we both really enjoyed it, and my sister even bought a bottle to take home. Overall: big thumbs up. If I didn’t have to drive, I would’ve loved to check out more of their wines.
The Food:
The strawberry bruschetta was scrumptious, striking just the right note between sweet and tangy. The cheese board was plentiful with excellent selection. It had Humboldt Fog – YUM!, brie, manchego, a blue cheese, two other cheeses I don’t remember, prosciutto, salami, cashews, dried cranberries, grapes, strawberries, and crackers. Delicious. We devoured it. My only critique is that I’m not a big fan of crackers as a cheese vehicle and would have preferred bread, apple, or pear slices, but this is a minor critique. I cannot emphasize enough how delicious the Humboldt Fog was! We had intended to split a salad after the two appetizers, but we were so full that we couldn’t. Overall: The food is pricey, but I found the quality and serving size to be totally worth it.
The Setting/​Ambiance:
Casual rustic chic. Great for lunch with a friend but could also be good for a date night.
The Service:
Fantastic – one of the best parts actually. With no reservations on a weekend, we were seated immediately and given a choice of indoor or outdoor. Our server (I think her name was Ali?) was wonderful: friendly, efficient, anticipated our every need, and even when she was busy, made us feel relaxed so we could enjoy our day out away from the kids.
I don’t live in the area, but if I did, I would definitely come back again and would certainly recommend it to a friend.

Had the best experience. Their Bella white wine was delish! Ally was great to us!
Came with some friends to celebrate our first day of summer and we had a blast. The cheese platter is yummy and the flatbreads are great!
Great environment for friends and fun! Enjoy!

Wonderful location in the heart of downtown San Juan Capistrano. The casual patio seating and the live music on certain nights make this my absolute favorite place to come and unwind with friends. Chef Adrian is truly a master at his craft. The bbq chicken flatbread is fantastic! Nick, Amy and Cameron are great servers who truly go above and beyond to ensure your visit is a good one.
The number one reason that keeps me coming back is the wine membership. For $ 65.00 you get two bottles of red wine per month and a free glass for you and a friend on each visit. The monthly members only party is always an event I look forward to. Best wine membership in existence if your talking value for the money. I have since convinced four of my friends to enroll.
Now there are a couple of things that are not so great, first being the quality of some of their wines. While they have some «decent» ones like the Mission Pinot and the Sonoma Valley Meritage, they also have some absolute duds. Their Super Mario and Capo Grande reds are certainly not something I would order again. That said, it all depends on personal taste. The service is also hit or miss on certain nights when their A team isn’t serving. I had to wait on the patio for almost 20 minutes last Thursday before I was asked if I wanted any food or drink.
Wine snobs be forewarned, you may leave a little disappointed if your looking for top shelf wines. That said, the ambiance, the excellent membership benefits and the top quality cuisine makes this place a home run. Great job Rancho Capistrano! Now please open your San Clemente location!
–Matt Bolen

This is a five star place! I have been a member of the wine club for over a year (it’s brilliant if you go there weekly or monthly). I have tried almost every wine on the list and the food is amazing (favorite pork chops, salmon, burger or tacos). The staff is friendly and helpful and parking is easy with the parking structure. They even have amazingly comfortable t-​shirts and hats! Highly recommended in the area.

Beautiful location nestled in historic downtown San Juan with a great patio. The food is mediocre and overpriced for the area. The staff is fine but not trained well and barely customer service oriented. But… this place is a «winery» so that’s what is most important.
The wine is tragically awful. Honestly I had the server bring me multiple glasses of different wines finally conceding and asking for their recommendation. All of it just muddy and terrible.
I’ve never thought of myself as a wine aficionado but this wine is a bummer. I so badly wanted to like it and like this place. But you’re going to get wine that is less refined than Trader Joes «two buck chuck» and averages $ 12−15/glass.
Try Five Vines next door for lots of good options of drinkable wine.
Sorry but Rancho Capistrano Winery should stop making wine for the sake of wine lovers everywhere.

A group of us girls came here because our Amtrak was delayed by an 1 and 50 minutes. The good thing is that it’s that close the the train and reason for the 2 stars. The sad review is for the surf and turf, when they set the plate done I was already disappointed! The steak was sliced and was over cooked and tasted awful! I water $ 26 dollars on this plate and wish I could get my money back, don’t order the surf and turf! I was lucky enough to go with friend who offered me some of their food, which was some pizza and lemon truffle frys which where good.
I’m so annoyed with Restaurants putting food out to turn a dollar and not using good and high end level products. Nice place thou.

This is a nice place, great location, awesome outdoor patio seating and ambience. The food was really good and my server Nik was really nice. And swamped, doing his best. Unfortunately they were having service issues and it seams they needed to support wait staff a little more. I will try again and everyone was nice and friendly, just understaffed or not organized.

Stopped here for beer flights and a glass of wine after a huge brunch at the nearby Ramos Café, so we just ordered drinks and the cheese plate which was awesome.
Service is a bit sloppy (literally: spilled the wine while pouring it, no attempt to clean up.) Too many young people with not enough training equals flippant, even if friendly, service.
Having the outdoor fireplace on in 70-​degree sunny weather is a bit weird and made seating in the otherwise enticing couches unbearable, which again points to a lack of tight management, in my opinion.
Good selection of craft beers. Wines by the glass selection felt a bit on the lightweight, girly side, as in in no hefty Cabernet, too many blended wines, etc. I’m a fan of the latter so that was not an issue for me but it may be for the wine-​tasting aficionados.
Plenty of outdoor seating to enjoy the glorious California weather :-)
Despite the irksome things, we enjoyed ourselves and will come back, so something about the place overrides its failings. We watched the food other tables ordered go by and it looked great!

There are enough options in this area, that I’d go elsewhere next time.
We were in town for my mom’s bday, had already had HH at 5 Vines and were just looking to chill for the next 45 – 60 min before my mom’s train pulled in. I had an hour and a half, so we got a bottle of red, Maverick. Good wine, $ 39 for all wines on the menu.
We also ordered the Chorizo & Clams, and the Brussels Sprouts. Both were excellent.
Why no 5 Stars you say?
Because no amount of good food and good wine can make up for shitty service.
The bartender was snippy and somewhat condescending. My mom is a question asker… hey if you work at a bar, expect that sometimes you will have to talk to people. My mom asked what the story is with the wines, does Rancho Capistrano own these different vineyards, or do they just bottle and label this wine and other places can also do the same or is this «your wine»…she was vague, and when my mom conversationally kept trying to ask she got really short with her. It was just off putting. We still don’t know if they buy wine and label it, or if they own the vineyards, etc. We don’t really care. Just interesting info. Whatever.
Then train time came. The bartender was not there at that moment, but a girl was rolling silverware right next to me, so I told her I was going to walk my mom out to the train, we had a few minutes to wait, I have another hour… I am going to leave my purse and phone and everything right here so you know I am coming back…
I come back and there’s a receipt sitting on my phone. The bartender said she thought I left, didn’t know what was going on. Glad she didn’t take my food away. But yeah, who leaves without their phone or purse? And thanks, other chick for not telling her. There’s a damn train station right there. We can’t be the first people that have to leave at a specific time or be on a schedule. Be more accommodating, given the area in which you are located.
Overall it was a disappointment. Even though the food and the wine were both excellent.
***and the fact that the owner Kyle reads the reviews and responds pretty much immediately is a good sign. Adding back another star.

I’ve been here a few times, most times have been good. The food is mainly the appeal, the wine is good. The mission zin is what I tend to get. The pizzas, salads, and ambiance is really great. The music they play is not too loud so you can’t talk to your friends.
However, the night I went there with my date, we sat outside for about 15 minutes before being noticed– not even asked if we wanted water… My date had to go up and ask the hostess for a menu and if we could order some wine. When the waitress showed up at our table she apologized that she didn’t see us, we were behind a column, and there was only one other table seated on the patio, which was another servers table.
After we got our wine, and our salad, my datel said he smelled something bad. We both thought it was coming from the train and it would dissapate soon. When the waitress came back, she apologized for the smell and told us that sometimes when it rains, the lowest part of the city is this loop, so things «tend to back up here». Umm… Gross. I would have rather thought it was the train.
It seemed as we were being pushed to go so they could shut down, but there were still several people inside. We still had half a bottle left, so the server asked if she could recork it. That was fine with us, so she took the bottle back, and it took a while for her to come back. We were wondering if she had to go drive to find a new cork somewhere??? We finally got up to go ask for it, and then we were told it would be «right out». It was handed to us in a brown bag– which was cute, and said Rancho Capistrano winery, so I didn’t think I needed to check it. When we got home to reopen it, the bottle only had ¼ left. Why would we bother recorking that little between two people? I don’t know what happened. Did they spill it? Did they drink it? I have no clue. Very strange though.
I really do like this place, maybe it was a fluke experience, but when we got home– the whole experience pieced together was a bad night. My boyfriend said he wished he would not have tipped 20% once we realized we came home with the missing wine.

A wine bar located in downtown San Juan Capistrano that boasts an outdoor patio with cozy couches and a fireplace. The ambience of the patio at night is probably the best part about this place. Sitting on a comfy couch next to a fire looking at lights while drinking a glass of wine is nothing short of perfect.
However it’s a bit pricey for a wine bar (a side of hummus with pita is $ 9!) And a typical glass of red wine is about $ 12. Side note– for nine dollars, the hummus should have some actual flavor to it. Our entrees were thankfully delicious– I got the chicken pesto which was creamy and the sundried tomatoes complemented it perfectly. My friend ordered the lamb sliders and thought they were good too. Our service was so-​so: we had to ask for water a few times and it took about 30 minutes before we finally got some– and it was infused with cucumber– yuck! I know some people might like that but for me that’s not a good thing. The ambience however, outweighed the negatives and I had a good time.

I think I found my next wine club.. today after a long day I decided to try something new. Something that would suffice my hunger while affording me the necessary drink of wine needed for ending a very long week. So I rolled the dice and ended up at RCW.
Arrived here around 6pm. Expected a crowd for the rush hour dinner thing but was pleasantly surprised to find they still had some open tables. Now on a standard Friday night I understand they offer outdoor seating and live music, however, they had reserved the outside patio for a wedding. No problem for me as the inside was perfectly fine.
The hostess informed me that inside is open seating so I chose a nice cozy spot in the corner. My waiter was awesome. His name is Kameron and he made a goddess portion of why I gave this place a 5 star. Now on to the food…
I ordered the famous crispy Brussel sprouts. There’s a reason they call it famous. Kameron was very helpful in explaining the menu and also convinced me to order the wine flight. Good choices so far. Brussel sprouts were probably the best I’ve ever had! Then ordered the tuna poke salad. Wow! It probably was the best poke salad I’ve ever had. Fresh tuna and mango, carrots and a whole bunch more of delicious! Then I finished things off with a 16oz rib eye. Ok ok lots of food but now that I’m thinking of everything I’ve just wrote, I failed to mention I brought my date along so I don’t so food can be shared. Phew!
The steak as large as it was smothered in mushroom gravy with sides of steamed vegetables and potatoes was excellent! Where is this chef? This is worthy of competition.
Finished the night with a warm local baked brownie and ice cream.
Good job Rancho! Great service and delicious food. Next to do is to join the wine club for this exceptional wine and for the monthly parties they host for members.

Great outdoor décor and setup, live music in the evening times, and dog friendly! there were so many dogs here in the outdoor seating area!
Unfortunately there were a few things that would’ve made this place better. for one, having more than one bathroom– i think there’s only one girls and one boys bathroom, and this place is a pretty decent size, shocking to think that there’s only one.
Food was ok too, at least for what my sister and I ordered– I got the ahi salad and she got the shrimp scampi pasta– the ahi salad only came with 5 slices of ahi which seems really stingy considering the price AND because its’ only on mixed greens. The scampi is not scampi at all, not what you would normally have in mind, it was more of a soupy pasta with 5 shrimp thrown in…
The other sad part was that we got a bottle of cabernet and it was not good, i couldn’t finish my first glass of it. and I don’t think that I’m usually that picky about my cabernets. All in all, I do really like the location and décor of this place, maybe just order something else than what I did this time around.

I read about this place the other day and saw they had a Mexican Coffee Port, which sounded amazing to me. I also read the food was good, so we went for lunch over the weekend.
This is a beautiful restaurant with a great patio. We chose to eat outside since the weather was absolutely perfect. Our waitress was very nice and did a great job checking on us.
He got their beer flight, which is the 4 beers they have that day. He was pleased with the selection of local craft beers. I had an iced tea, it was really lemony and I liked it.
For lunch I had the lamb sliders and he had the steak sandwich. Both of our choices were really good, although really messy. There was goat cheese aioli on both of our meals, and while it had a great flavor, there was too much of it so it was a complete mess to eat. I really did love those sliders though, the grilled onions and roasted red peppers were so delicious on them.
When we were done eating I asked if I could have a taste of the Mexican Coffee Port. I had originally planned on doing a wine tasting inside at the bar when we were done, but I was so full that I didn’t want to drink much. She said no problem and brought it out to me. Hmmm it tasted really fruity. He agreed. Not at all what I was expecting from Mexican Coffee Port, and I was kind of bummed. We paid and left, and when we were walking out he saw they also had a Chocolate Raspberry Port for sale. We both think she gave me the wrong one. Bummer.
Since we both liked this place, I am sure we will take another trip down to eat here again. I will make sure I get the right Port to try next time!