SACRAMENTO -- The San Antonio Winery is a most unlikely business in a most unlikely spot.

It is the city's last producing winery, and it is located amid industrial buildings on the wrong side of the railroad tracks from downtown Los Angeles.

Despite its lousy location, the winery has stayed in business for nearly 90 years with four generations of the same family working there, serving as a reminder of a time when this city was home to nearly 90 small wineries.

"I am sure as you were driving down the street for the first time, you were thinking where the hell am I?" Steven Riboli, the winery's vice president, said to a visitor. "But once you are here, you forget where you are."

Riboli is the grandnephew of founder Santo Cambianica, who came from the Lombardy region of Italy to Los Angeles in 1915 to work for the railroad.

Cambianica settled in a rural area next to the Los Angeles River populated by other Italians.

Two years later, he started a small winery at the same location where the San Antonio Winery stands today and named it after his patron saint, Saint Anthony.

At the time, Riboli said, Los Angeles' small, family wineries were selling to the 45,000 Italian immigrants who came to the area seeking work.

Prohibition put many of those wineries out of business, but San Antonio Winery stayed afloat by selling sacramental wine to the Catholic Church

In 1937, Riboli's father, Stefano, came from Italy to work with his uncle. Cambianica never had any children, so Stefano Riboli and his wife, Maddalena, took over the winery after Cambianica died in 1957.

In 1975, Maddalena Riboli opened a restaurant at the winery, called Maddalena Restaurant, which she eventually expanded into a banquet and event business.

The winery operation moved beyond sacramental and jug wines to produce bottled vintages. The Riboli family purchased vineyards in Monterey, Santa Barbara and the Napa Valley. But they continued to run their operation from the same location where they got their start.

The hardscrabble neighborhood is a far cry from the rural enclave where Cambianica first opened his winery and a long way from the tony tasting rooms of the Napa Valley. But Steven Riboli views that as an advantage.

"Most wineries are in agricultural areas, and some of those agricultural areas have become tourist areas," he said. "They're all fighting for the same customer. We are here pretty much all by ourselves servicing a huge population of 15 million."

The city has designated the winery a "cultural historical landmark" that Riboli said draws 225,000 people a year _ about half of them repeat customers. Unlike most large Napa Valley wineries, San Antonio wine tastings and tours are free.

The winery produces about 4 million bottles a year under a variety of labels: San Simeon, Maddalena, La Quinta, Aliento del Sol and Riboli Family.

These wines have won numerous gold medals from California fair competitions and notices in Wine Spectator and the Wine Enthusiast. But they have yet to reach Steven Riboli's goal of making the Wine Spectator's Top 100 list.

San Antonio's wines are only available at its tasting rooms, in restaurants and at high-end retail outlets, like Sacramento's William Glen or Nugget Markets.

Hank Beal, Nugget Markets director of adult beverages, called the wines "solid" and said he especially likes the 2004 San Simeon pinot noir and syrah.

He said the winery is a "well-funded" operation. "It's not a Gallo. But ... they have been around long enough that they're not going anywhere," he said.

The family is already grooming the fourth generation to take over the business.

Christopher Riboli, a 17-year-old entering his senior year in high school in the fall, is working as a tour guide, file clerk and stocker this summer.

Finishing his lunch in his grandmother's restaurant, he said he plans to join the family business after college.

"I like it here," he said. "It's a great place to be."