L.A. WINELINE.

Byline: - Larry Lipson

We often forget that Los Angeles used to be wine country.

But there is one solid reminder: the San Antonio Winery downtown.

Here's a combination working winery, tasting room, restaurant, banquet facility and wine shop that's been around since 1917, a continuing venture of the founding Cambianica/Riboli family that certainly deserves a visit from locals, especially those who are interested in California wines and their history.

Those who scoff at the seeming enigma of an L.A.-based winery should realize that the Ribolis today own vineyards in Napa Valley and in Monterey County. They also farm grapes in Sonoma's Alexander Valley, Edna Valley, Paso Robles and the Santa Maria Valley in Santa Barbara County.

You can still find inexpensive jug-type and fortified wines under the San Antonio label, but the wines that win medals for the Ribolis are mostly those with the Maddalena and San Simeon labels.

Here at the San Antonio winery, only white wines are actually made. Grapes are crushed elsewhere and the juice is trucked down to L.A.

White wine enthusiast Santo Riboli, vice president of the Riboli Family of Wines, is quick to proffer his Maddalena pinot grigio and Maddalena riesling, each usually priced under $10 a bottle.

``We're planting more riesling in Monterey,'' he says proudly, pointing out that the winery's current production is so popular it doesn't fill consumers' needs on an annual basis.

But San Antonio's Riboli family has expanded the firm to global proportions. In addition to their high-end Riboli Family Vineyard label of Napa and Santo Stefano Alexander Valley cabernet sauvignons - plus Aliento Del Sol, La Quinta and Kinderwood labels along with full lines of their Maddalena and San Simeon wines - they import some 200 brands of wine from Italy, France, Chile, Australia and Spain.

In the San Antonio wine shop you'll find these wines from around $5 and up, with some of the Riboli Family Vineyard's 1997 cabernet still available at $49 a bottle.

But you can also buy expensive Bordeaux bottlings here for up to $500, notes Santo Riboli.

Meanwhile, in the full-service cafeteria-type Maddalena restaurant that's open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily for lunch and early supper, premium wines by the glass run around $4 to $4.50.

Though it produces more than half a million cases of wine a year, San Antonio is a true, down-to-earth, family enterprise with several of the Ribolis on hand daily.

San Antonio Winery at 737 Lamar St., off North Main Street, offers tours, wine seminars and tastings. Information: [phone].

Note: Check on games won and lost Tuesday re following item.(Incidentally, a case of L.A.'s San Antonio wine will be given by our Mayor James Hahn to San Antonio Mayor Ed Garza if the L.A. Lakers lose against the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Western Conference semifinals, affirms Julie Wong of Mayor Hahn's press office.)

SMALL SIPS: Bargain of the Month is the refreshing, clean-tasting white Maddalena 2002 Monterey pinot grigio ($9.95) ... Wine and food fanciers will flock Saturday night to the annual California Winemasters' festival and auction, at the Pacific Design Center on Melrose Avenue. Tickets: $250. Call [phone]. Proceeds go to the Cystic Fibrosis foundation.