Nine decades after the founding of what today is Los Angeles' last remaining winery, family is as important as ever at San Antonio Winery.

Having survived Prohibition by providing Communion wines to local parishes, San Antonio today continues to be a major supplier of sacramental wine to dozens of parishes --- including the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels --- but is also an award-winning producer of high-end varietals.

And the family-owned winery, which celebrated its 90th anniversary milestone on Oct. 11, today boasts nine members of the founding family in its employ at its original location, 737 Lamar Street in the former "Little Italy" section of Lincoln Heights north of downtown L.A.

San Antonio was founded in 1917, two years after Italian immigrant Santo Cambianica arrived from Italy's Lombardy region to work on the railroad. Begun as a little wine-making business on the side (which Cambianica named after his patron saint, Saint Anthony of Padua), the winery did well until the 18th Amendment in 1919 closed most of Los Angeles' 100 wineries, ending forever Southern California's short-lived distinction as the state's wine-making capital.

"It was a bad time to be in the wine business," said Cambianica's grandnephew Steve Riboli, a San Antonio Winery vice president. The only reason the winery survived, he said, was because of a handful of Catholic parishes, including St. Vibiana's Cathedral, used San Antonio's sacramental wines, for which production was permitted.

"The reason for our existence today is the long-term relationship with the Catholic Church," asserted Riboli, a parishioner at Holy Angels in Arcadia. "Between 1920 and 1940, it's what kept our doors open. We are not only thankful but grateful it occurred to our family. We feel it's such an important part of our heritage, we can't give it up."

At the same time, he noted, few other wineries sell high-end varietals as well as sacramental wine. Still, Riboli said, San Antonio today is the largest sacramental wine supplier in the country, controlling about two-thirds of the market.

'Matriarchal operation'
In 1937 (after the 1933 repeal of Prohibition), Cambianica was able to send for his 16-year-old nephew, Stefano Riboli, who helped with the wine presses and delivered the winery's locally-grown grapes and bottled wine to families all over the area. Two years before his bachelor uncle Cambianica died in 1957, Stefano, along with his Italian immigrant wife, Maddalena, took over the winery.

"I think my dad would've been happy to keep the business small, and keep it in the garage," said Steve, whose two older siblings, Santo and Cathy serve as president and vice president, respectively, at the 150-employee winery. "It was my mom who was the driving force, though. This is truly a matriarchal operation, and our mother is really a testament to the strength of womanhood."

According to Steve, his mother was a winemaking and marketing pioneer from early on who opened the first wine tasting room in California in the early '50s where she introduced local residents to French and Italian imported wines.

When sales of her Italian sausage sandwich took off with area workers in a neighborhood bereft of eateries, Maddalena told her husband she needed to take over the winery's fermentation room to open a sit-down restaurant. Maddalena's at San Antonio Winery, which opened in 1975, became the first restaurant to open inside a California winery, Steve noted.

Still active in her eighties, Maddalena comes down most days during the noontime crush at the restaurant and can often be seen handing out dishes from behind the counter. "Every day during the week, she has to make raviolis with her little crew," said Santo. "They have their ravioli plate planned out every week. Boy, does that woman work."

Fourth generation
Santo's son Anthony is now San Antonio's chief winemaker. "We hadn't had a family [member] winemaker since my grandfather was making wine, and we never had someone who was formally trained in winemaking," said Anthony, who received a master's degree in enology from U.C. Davis.

His innovations have included clonal selections, crop thinning and deficit irrigation in the family's vineyards in Rutherford (Napa Valley), Paso Robles and Monterey. Since joining the family business full-time, Anthony has produced award-winning wines and expanded the wine selection to include more varieties such as syrah and petite sirah.

Modest about his accomplishments, Anthony, the new father of a daughter, Alena, says being the fourth generation to participate in the family business is very rewarding. "The thing that makes me the most proud is every morning I see my grandfather in the tasting room, and he's happy, and he says that people like the wine --- that is a wonderful blessing to have."

And he is proud that San Antonio produces a quality product, regardless of its atypical urban location. "Even though it says 'bottled in Los Angeles,' I don't think people care --- if the wine's really good," said Anthony.

Currently, the winery --- designated in 1965 as a City of Los Angeles cultural historical landmark --- produces four million bottles a year under several labels. Among the newest are Riboli Family Estate Wines, a collection that include the Riboli Family Vineyard, Santo Stefano, Maddalena Vineyard, Aliento del Sol, San Simeon and La Quinta lines of high quality wines.

Retailers that sell San Antonio products include the gift shop at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which stocks the Maddalena label wines. "Sales are great," says Steve Riboli, who knows of no other cathedral gift shop in the world that sells wine.

The restaurant is a hugely popular culinary destination. Pat Wickhem, lunching recently at Maddalena's, has been coming to the restaurant for several years since meeting Steve Riboli at Holy Angels and going on a couple of retreats together. "I love the family atmosphere," he said as he rose from the table to shake Steve's extended hand.

For more information about San Antonio Winery, call (323) 223-1401 or visit www.sanantoniowinery.com.

Sacramental wine
Communion wine, according to The Code of Canon Law, "must be natural, made from grapes of the vine and not corrupt" (Canon 924, #3). "We make sacramental wines like we make our high-end varietals," said Steve Riboli. "Without added sugar, water or chemicals."

Sacramental wine has changed over the last 20 years, according to Riboli: "Drier wines are selling now. Communion wines used to be all red and sweeter, but newer/younger priests prefer drier wines." Also, he noted, more parish customers prefer lighter colored wines to reduce dark wine stains on church linens.

Currently, San Antonio Winery produces three sacramental wines: Communion Muscat, a white; Communion Rosé, a pink wine used at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (each total 40 percent of sacramental sales); and Communion Angelica, a golden color wine.