September 25, 2019 - Wednesday - Today we were in Los Angeles, old Los Angeles, to visit two spots each over the century mark. The main destination was the San Antonio Winery founded by Santo Cambianica in 1917, dedicating it to his patron Saint Anthony. Santo passed away in 1956 but left the winery to his nephew Stefano Riboli and his wife Maddalena. She is still involved in the business, along with their children and grandchildren. Sadly, Stefano passed away in July 2019. San Antonio Winery remains the oldest and largest producing winery in Los Angeles with over 100 years of winemaking.
This is our tour guide, Hector, an employee of 44 years. We're surrounded by fermentation tanks.
While we saw the area where all the bottling occurs, it wasn't in operation today. We did miss the sounds associated with this mechanical operation.
Wine Enthusiast named San Antonio its "American Winery of the Year" for 2018.
Before taking the tour, we had lunch at the 1908 Philippe's, right by Union Station. Philippe’s “French Dipped Sandwich” is the specialty of the house and consists of either roast beef, roast pork, leg of lamb, turkey, pastrami or ham served on a lightly textured, freshly baked French roll which has been dipped in the natural gravy of the roasts. We had their roast beef sandwiches with potato salad, pickled egg and some lemonade.
Since we were right next to China Town, we stopped at the Phoenix Bakery after the tour and picked up a slice of their famous strawberry cake. That will be tonight's dinner!
