December 29, 2013 – Float Decoration – Races at Santa Anita – San Antonio Winery

This was a busy and event-filled day!

After an incredible breakfast, we took a bus to Sierra Madre to help with their float preparation.

Two background and historical items of interest to us:

·         This event began as a promotional effort by Pasadena’s distinguished Valley Hunt Club. In the winter of 1890, the club members brainstormed ways to promote the “Mediterranean of the West.”  They invited their former East Coast neighbors to a mid-winter holiday, where they could watch games such as chariot races, jousting, foot races, polo and tug-of-war under the warm California sun.  The abundance of fresh flowers, even in the midst of winter, prompted the club to add another showcase for Pasadena’s charm: a parade would precede the competition, where entrants would decorate their carriages with hundreds of blooms.  The Tournament of Roses was born.

During the next few years, the festival expanded to include marching bands and motorized floats.  The games on the town lot (which was re-named Tournament Park in 1900) included ostrich races, bronco busting demonstrations and a race between a camel and an elephant (the elephant won).  Reviewing stands were built along the Parade route, and Eastern newspapers began to take notice of the event.  In 1895, the Tournament of Roses Association was formed to take charge of the festival, which had grown too large for the Valley Hunt Club to handle.

The Rose Parade’s elaborate floats now feature high-tech computerized animation and exotic natural materials from around the world. 

·         Today, most of the floats are financed by major corporations and constructed by professional float building companies and take nearly a year to construct.  Sierra Madre’s float, on the other hand, is one of only six still designed, funded and built by volunteers!

Entering the barn, there was a color poster of the float as it will look on New Year’s Day.

we could see the “guts” of the float (which have been painted but not had the flower, seed and other organic coverings added)

as well as some of the finished and partially-completed components to he added in the next day or so.

As volunteers for the morning, we were offered several options to help; including

Eventually, we opted to assist in unwrapping,

removing the guard petals from, trimming the stems of  

and inserting some 10,000 roses destined for the float into individual vials.

And, there were thousands of other flowers

and even oranges and grapefruits

still to be prepared.

We can’t wait see the finished float pass by our reserved grandstand seats on New Year’s morning.

 After returning to our campground, we boarded a shuttle

to the clubhouse on the other side of the Santa Anita race track grounds.

We passed several statues, including one of Seabiscuit,

another recognizing that the park has hosted the Breeder’s Cup

Trees pruned in a topiary fashion,

and the paddock area where jockeys (some of whom look pretty young) and their horses enter and parade before their upcoming race.

Our table for a sumptuous lunch was right up against the windows

overlooking the track.

We stayed through the first five races, betting on two horses in each race; either to Place of Show.

  At the end of the afternoon, our net winnings totaled a whopping $2.40!

This evening we were bused to the San Antonio Winery, one of just 28 surviving wineries in Los Angeles.

Without meaning to bore anyone, the history of the wine industry in California and or this winery, in particular, is fascinating, as told to us by one of the third generation members of the founding family.

The California wine tradition began with the Franciscan Fathers of the early Spanish Missions.  The person considered the founder of the California wine industry was a French winemaker, Jean-Louis Vignes. In 1833 he brought the first European vines from his native Bordeaux to Los Angeles.  In present day Los Angeles, Vignes planted these wines and built a winery.  Years later a street in LA would bear his name.  By the end of the 1800′s, Los Angeles was the premier appellation for grape growing and wine making in California.

During the late 1800′s and early 1900′s, vineyards stretched throughout Southern California, encompassing much of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties. With its temperate Mediterranean climate, Southern California was an ideal location for growing fruity, lush, deeply-colored grapes, such as Zinfandel, Carignan, Malvasia, and Mourvedre.  It was not long before the wine industry became one of Southern California’s most economically important – and popular industries!  The landscape was primed for Santo Cambianica’s fresh ideas and hard-working philosophy.

In 1910, Santo Cambianica

arrived in New York and was registered at Ellis Island.  He had left his home of Berzo San Fermo, located in the northern Italian province of Lombardia which borders Austria to the north.  In his home community, Santo was known as an honest, hard-working, and deeply devout Catholic.  It was not long after he arrived on Lamar Street on the outskirts of a fledgling downtown Los Angeles, that he was known to possess those same qualities.  It took only a few years of saving money, building his relationships and friendships, and planting his feet in the Italian-American community to start his own company and live the American dream!

Santo Cambianica

founded the San Antonio Winery in 1917 at the same location where the winery exists today on Lamar Street.  As a life-long Catholic, he dedicated the new company to his Patron Saint Anthony, a saint popular with many Italian immigrants during that time.

In 1919, US Congress passed the Volstead Act (Prohibition), which jolted the wine industry.  The majority of wineries in and around Los Angeles closed forever, but Santo was given permission by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to make wines for sacramental and ceremonial purposes.  His strong relationship with the church saved his company.  Due to Prohibition and then the Great Depression which started after the Wall Street crash of 1929, nearly all of the 100 wineries in LA went out of business.  When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, San Antonio Winery was one of the very few wineries to survive in Southern California.  Consequently, San Antonio Winery experienced an immediate, fortuitous surge of business.

Stefano Riboli returned from Italy to the US in 1936.  With World War II on the horizon, Stefano’s mother and father knew it was the appropriate time to return their son to the US where he was born 15 years earlier.  Stefano immediately began working with his uncle Santo Cambianica.  As a youth, Stefano apprenticed under Uncle Santo and began to learn the countless skills necessary to operate a winery. He became an invaluable partner to his uncle, San Antonio Winery’s founder.

When Stefano Riboli married Maddalena Satragni in 1946,

the winery was already an integral part of California’s wine community.  During that time, the industry still existed mainly in the South, but Northern California was making fast strides in the business.  During the 1950′s and when Santo, Stefano, and Maddalena were at the helm of San Antonio, much of the wine industry moved North.  However, they decided to remain in Los Angeles where they had been blessed by good fortune and where their family lived.  They built a new tasting room in 1954, one of the first in the state, and constantly implemented improvements in the winery facility.

Santo Cambianica passed away in 1956 and wished that his nephew Stefano continue the business for the next generation.  After a brief, yet unfortunate legal dispute with distant relatives, Stefano was legally granted full ownership of San Antonio Winery.  He and Maddalena had a powerful vision of their future and family.

During the 1950′s and 1960′s, Stefano and Maddalena began to look North for land and grape contracting.  They quickly realized that the quality of grapes produced in the North began to surpass those in the South.  With assistance from their children they purchased vineyard properties in Monterey County in the 1970′s.

Today neighbors include Pisoni Vineyards and Winery, Hahn Estates, Talbott Vineyards, and Paraiso Vineyards. They also started relationships and business partnerships with grape growers throughout California, many of which still exist.  The Riboli Family then purchased vineyard property in the prestigious Rutherford appellation of Napa Valley in 1986, which placed the Riboli’s in excellent company along the Silverado Trail with wineries such as Beaulieu Vineyard, Caymus Vineyards, and ZD Wines.  Paso Robles is the most recent grape-growing region on which the Riboli Family has focused because of the lush and complex character of the grapes grown there.  Their well-established relationships with grape growers play a crucial role in the high quality of Riboli Family wines.

Today the Los Angeles River is paved and the vineyards have been replaced with businesses and homes. San Antonio Winery remains the last producing winery in Los Angeles after over 90 years of wine making and is an essential component of LA’s cultural and historical landscape.  In fact, in the early 1960′s Los Angeles’ Cultural Heritage Board designated the winery Cultural Monument Number 42.  Still in its original location on Lamar Street, the Winery is the last vestige of the rich wine-making tradition of the greater LA area.

After our extremely informative tour and we enjoyed our third incredible meal of the day, accompanied by some of the best Chardonnay and Cabernet wines we’ve tasted n a long time!