Everyone knows the name Ernest Gallo. With his brother Julio they started the E&J Gallo Winery in Modesto, California in 1932. In 70 years the winery grew to be the largest in the world. Some evidence of the scale of the Gallo Winery’s operations can be found in the interview itself.

“We will crush this year [1971] somewhere around 650,000 tons of grapes. We will produce only somewhere in the area of 50,000 tons” (Gallo, 1995, p.31).1

A ton of grapes produces about 150 gallons of wine (Gallo, 1995). In 1971 the Gallo winery produced about 105,000,000 gallons of wine. That’s a large operation by any standard.

This paper is based on an interview with Ernest Gallo conducted during the period 1969–1971 by the Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley