Brewery Art Walk and San Antonio Winery

Today was a great downtown L.A. day. We started at the San Antonio Winery. This L.A. landmark has been around since 1917 and was packed on a Sunday afternoon. Although you can't tell from the website, everyone gets 3 tastings free of charge. You can also upgrade and get their reserve collection, 4 wines for $10. They have a large restaurant on site and several banquet rooms. The restaurant is cafeteria style and they had simple sandwiches as well as full entrees. It was very crowded while we were there between 2:30 and 3. We took the tour that is offered every hour on the hour. The guide was very knowledgeable and friendly. It was interesting to learn that they were the only winery in Los Angeles to survive prohibition and that it is still family run. I've been to several vineyards but this tour was unique because it is more about the business end; they make wine for other vineyards, provide many churches with communion wine and all wine that's bottled in Los Angeles is bottled there. Definitely worth a visit.

After that we headed to The Brewery Artwalk. This is a twice-yearly event just a half mile from the winery. The Brewery is a 22 building colony in which 500 artists have studios. This weekend all of the studios were open. There were so many different types of artists at this event. Most live in the spaces too so you were able to see many different styles. All were very welcoming and happy to talk about their work. We spent about 2 and a half hours and saw about 2/3 of the studios. It was a great free event.

www.sanantoniowinery.com
breweryartwalk.com