Ernest Gallo, one of the richest men in America, died at his home on Tuesday. He was 97. According to winery spokeswoman Susan Hensley, “He passed away peacefully this afternoon surrounded by his family.”
Ernest and his brother Julio helped put California’s wine industry on the map,” said Peter Marks, a senior director at the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa, California. They had the ability to make and market wine consumers could enjoy.
Robert Koch, president of the Wine Institute, in a statement, said “The American wine industry, particularly the California wine industry, owes an enormous amount of gratitude to the Gallo brothers.
In 1933, two months after his father shot his mother to death and then turned the gun on himself, Ernest Gallo, along with his brother and longtime business partner Julio, founded the E&J; Winery. With only $5,900 the pair had borrowed, and using a wine recipe they had found in the Modesto Public Library, the two rented a building, and with help from family, started making ordinary wine. They sold it for 50 cents a gallon, which was half the price of other wines at the time. During the first year in business, the company made $30,000 for the Gallo brothers.
Befitting their company’s humble beginnings, the Gallo brothers tried to bring wine to the masses. “Thunderbird” wine was one of their popular concoctions. Developed in the 1950s, it mixed high-alcohol wine with fruit juice. It was the precursor to the Bartles & James wine cooler the Gallo brothers developed in the 1980s. But money wasn’t the only concern for the company. When “Thunderbird” wine became the drink of choice in slums, Ernest ordered that the wine not be sold to stores frequented by derelicts.
Over the years, the company the two brothers started grew into the largest wine company in the United States. At one point, it was the largest in the world, but Constellations Brand, Inc., has taken over the top spot. E&J; Gallo remains number two, selling an estimated 65 to 70 million cases each year.
“My brother Julio and I worked to improve the quality of wines from California and to put fine wine on American dinner tables at a price people could afford,” Mr. Gallo said in a newspaper interview on his 90th birthday. “We also worked to improve the reputation of California wines here and overseas.”
As a businessman, Ernest was known to be brutal. One story he particularly enjoyed telling was how one employee, on a tour of Florida stores, was left behind, but Ernest refused to go back for him. “How valuable can a guy be if he wasn’t missed in three hours?”
Another story told of the businessman was that in 1986, when Ernest learned that two employees of the winery were planning on purchasing a competing business, he fired the two on the spot.
According to another winery spokesman, John Segale, Gallo died of natural causes. He was preceded in death by his wife, Amelia, and elder son, David. He is survived by his other son Joseph, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. His business interests grew until the Gallo family worth is now an estimated $1.3 billion.
Sources:
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news
www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4608246.html
today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx
