On the Road: Wynola, More than Just a Stop En Route to Julian

Julian Station is neither in Julian nor an actual station. It is the hub of Wynola, three miles outside of Julian and was once a boarding house, store and post office. Later it became an apple packing plant and cider house in the early 1940s.

Wynola might be a tiny blip on the map but it's a friendly and welcoming place worth a stop, look and see. Julian Station has numerous boutique shops, antique stores and local art galleries; four different wine, beer, mead and hard cider tasting rooms; and a yoga and learning arts center keep this place constantly bustling.

"We were looking to move from Ocean Beach out to the back country and the owners of this building made us an offer we couldn't refuse," said Albert Lewis, of the roundabout way he and his wife, Lydia, took from the city to the country. "I had a couple of businesses in town, but we just felt we wanted to be in the countryside." So they took the risk and moved their family to Wynola. Today, they have transformed the original apple packing facility into a successful backcountry public market with a mission of facilitating fun and making memories and dreams.

"I love the Station, but my real passion is winemaking," Albert says. "We're in the process of getting bonded and licensed. We should be ready to open our tasting room in the fall. We'll also sell our Hemp Love Chocolate and Righteously Raw Eclipse organic and local chocolate." Besides featuring his own wines, Albert plans to offer other local wines for wine tasters.

Julian Hard Cider anchors the front of the market with its new tasting room. If you haven't noticed, there is a cider revival sweeping the country and this business was on the forefront of its rebirth. Besides apple flavor, this extremely popular and successful cidery features cherry, blueberry, blackberry and apple pie flavors. You really have to taste them to see how good they are, and to take heed of the sign on their door, which says that cider cures excessive nagging, poor choices, bad hair, acute and chronic whining, selective hearing, ignorance and shortsightedness.

Another revival is mead, the oldest alcoholic beverage, dating back many thousands of years. Golden Coast Mead, out of Oceanside, has a tasting room in Wynola offering their locally fermented mead. It was referred to in the Bible. It has even been thought of as medicine," Frank Golbeck, co-owner of the meadery says with an animated smile on his face, reflecting a huge passion for his business. "Even Beowulf drank mead after slaying the monster known as Grendel, in the Old English epic poem." Frank laughs. "Shakespeare, Chaucer and Tolkien all refer to mead in their writings. We're just bringing it back to the modern world."

They offer four different flavors: Sour, O.B. Dry, Speak Easy and California Oak. Some say this light and refreshing drink starts like a beer and ends like champagne. "It is definitely sunshine and flowers in a glass," Frank says with a sly smile on his face.