Ernest Gallo:As patriarch of a three-generation family of winemakers, Ernest Gallo, who has died aged 97, built the company he ran with his late brother Julio into the world's largest wine producer, and was influential in creating California's reputation as a premier international vintner.
The E&J Gallo winery at Modesto, east of San Francisco, won its leadership by producing a high-alcohol street wine called Thunderbird, aimed at poor black Americans. The ethics of Ernest's sales methods - he was the finance and marketing chief, while Julio made the wine - were also questioned and the US federal trade commission investigated the company in the mid-1970s.
In the 1980s, Gallo began producing fine vintages instead of relying on its cheap, screw-top table and jug wines and, despite a down-market reputation, the quality of the select wines eventually persuaded doubters. The change was aided by Gallo's purchase of several California wineries with a history of making fine wines.
Gallo became the world's largest wine company and only in 2003 did multiple acquisitions by rival Constellation Brands of New York state push that company slightly ahead. Constellation also sold beer and although Gallo produced its own brandy, sherry, port and sparkling wine, it always stayed with the grape.
The Gallo brothers experienced a trait common to several other Italian-American vintners in California: estrangement after a traumatic family feud. Ernest was born near Modesto almost a year before Julio. A younger brother, Joe, was born 10 years after Ernest and had the loving childhood denied to his siblings, who were worked mercilessly by their father, Joe, an immigrant from Piedmont, on the family's 70-acre vineyard.
This background might explain an extraordinary court case when, between 1986 and 1989, the older brothers successfully sued Joe jnr over putting the Gallo name on a brand of cheese produced at his prosperous dairy. He also lost a counter suit claiming he had been denied his rightful share of the estate.
The legacy dispute arose from a mysterious double killing in 1933 when Joe snr shot his wife, the mother of their three sons, then turned the gun on himself.
The older brothers, who found their parents' bodies at the family farmhouse, never spoke publicly about the incident and the cause remained a secret.
The family winery had begun to succeed when Joe snr took advantage of a loophole in the US anti-alcohol laws by growing and shipping grapes for private consumption (permitted personal wine production). This history was contrary to Gallo's official line that, taking advantage of the end of prohibition in 1933, the older brothers started the winery with a $5,900 loan and a book on wine-making borrowed from the public library. This was two months after the death of their parents.
At first, they sold in bulk, but in 1941 they started their own label. Yet despite Ernest's aggressive selling skills, the winery remained behind the leaders in what was at that time a small and unsophisticated US market. Then, in 1957, Gallo launched Thunderbird, a mixture of white port and lemon juice at 21 per cent alcohol that salesmen had noticed was popular among African-Americans. It sold for 60 cents a quart and was an immediate success.
In the decade following the launch, Gallo through Ernest began to transform wine vending in America. Salesmen made frequent, aggressive visits to retailers and insisted on prominent Gallo displays. Ernest also vertically integrated the corporation to save money and inexpensive table wines of reasonable quality gained popularity in America.
In 1972, Time magazine, undeterred by Gallo's intense press secrecy, featured the brothers on its cover as the wine industry's twin chiefs. Soon their fortunes were estimated at $500 million each.
Meanwhile, they began financing prominent politicians, including senators Robert Dole of Kansas, a Republican, and Alan Cranston of California, a Democrat. In 1978 and 1986 these two helped pass tax law provisions nicknamed "the Gallo wine amendment" that saved the brothers millions in estate taxes.
Gallo's prosperity continued with the acquisition of highly regarded wineries in California's prime viticulture counties and the company's introduction of generic wines priced up to $50. Ernest encouraged exports and entered business partnerships or made acquisitions in Australasia and Europe. By 2004 Gallo had 45 brands, compared with 11 in 1980.
Julio's death in a driving accident did not diminish Ernest's work obsession, but he was helped by the presence of his brothers' children in the business. During his 1990s, he continued at his desk in the imposing Parthenon West headquarters he had built in Modesto in his never-ending quest to improve Gallo's image.
He is survived by his son Joseph, chief executive of E&J Gallo. His wife Amelia, whom he married in 1931, died in 1993; another son, David, died in 1997.
Ernest Gallo, born March 18th, 1909; died March 7th, 2007