Gallo (winery)
winery and distributor in California
GALLO (also stylized Gallo, previously E. & J. Gallo Winery) is an American wine producer and distributor headquartered in Modesto, California. The company was founded in 1933 by Ernest Gallo and Julio Gallo of the Gallo family and primarily produces California wines. It is the largest family-owned winery in the United States and reported an annual revenue of $5.3 billion.
History
During Prohibition in the United States, Ernest and Julio Gallo grew grapes, selling them to Eastern states, where home winemaking was legal.
The winery was established in the fall of 1933, following the repeal of Prohibition. The Gallos' starting capital was less than $6,000 ($152,240 in 2026), with $5,000 borrowed by Ernest from his mother-in-law, Teresa Franzia. The brothers studied commercial oenology by reading pre-Prohibition pamphlets published by the University of California, which they retrieved from the basement of the Modesto Public Library. Julio focused on the production of wine, and Ernest on its sale. Early operations utilized a single tractor operated on consecutive 12-hour shifts. In their first year of activity, the brothers produced 177,000 gallons of wine.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gallo (winery)” as winery and distributor in California. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5324773. VIAF identifies the subject as 124589024. The Library of Congress control number is nb2005016223. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1933 and 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gallo (winery)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.