Oldtimers like TB recall Boone’s Farm which probably got more people interested in wine than anything else. Credit Ernest and Julio, Gallo that is, for that. Then they came up with Madria Madria Sangria. Nobody had had sangria at that time and suddenly it was all the rage. But here’s the thing: Cesar Chavez was leading the farmworkers protests at the time, so what did Ernie and Julio do? They ran commercials with a latina spouting on the wonderful sangria “my hussband and his oncle” made. One has to wonder how many people who supported the farmworkers were duped into buying it.
One year, watching the World Series, I saw several commercials for Carlo Rossi Wine. Huh? Never heard of it…how can they afford to do it. Well…Carlo was a distant cousin and voila! Gallo paid for the commercials and of course owned the winery (?) – probably made at the Gallo winery.
Lastly, they came up with Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers. They even had a phone number you could call and hear the boys talking to one another…and a house with a sign out and two guys rocking on the porch. At the time, Gallo owned the largest intra-state trucking company.
They were nothing if not innovative and once you got past the ‘pop’ wines, dollar for dollar they made the best wine in the U.S., dollar for dollar. Hearty Burgundy was the best of the bunch…even though it contained no burgundian grapes!
Then Julio died in 1993 in an accident when a vehicle (jeep?) he was driving veered off a farm road leaving it all to Ernest to run the company. About this time, Gina Gallo bought land in Dry Creek Valley and wanted to make a premium wine. The catch was she had to use the Gallo name. Now imagine an enophile having a dinner with a bottle of Gallo on the table! BUT, she overcame that and produced a respectable table wine.
What next? They decided to buy up wineries around the world. Do you like Albarino? Martin Codax. Rather than list them all consider Apothic, Edna Valley, William Hill, and a flock of others. Here is a link: Gallo portfolio You will be amazed as TB was. They are now the largest wine producer in the world.
Now back to the winery. The great Andre Tchelistcheff’s son, Dimitri, went to work there. Why? Because he couldn’t stand the way Madame treated his father at Beaulieu Vineyard. He then hired Richard G. (Dick) Peterson as a chemist, introduced him to Andre and eventually Dick left to work under Andre. Then, when Heublein bought B.V., Dick ascended to being winemaker with Andre leaving to become a consultant. Note that Heidi Peterson Barrett, his daughter, became one of the top winemakers in America.
TB refers back to his early comment that Gallo made the best wine in America, dollar for dollar. Don’t underestimate them…many have and were proven wrong.
So why all this about Gallo? Because they were single-handedly responsible for introducing young people to wine coolers, pop wines, and finally table wines. Finally, we are back to the title of this edition. There has always been, and continues to be a ‘logical’ (?) progression from sweet white wines to dryer whites, to rose’s and lighter reds to full-bodied reds. Here is a link to a new study that confirms this: WineBusiness.com Note that the study also shows a preference for organic, sustainable, and biodynamic wines but a willingness to pay a few dollars more for it.
TB has to end this now…off to a tasting of organic, sustainable, biodynamic wines!
(c) traderbillonwine.com 2018
Trader Bill on Wine 