• by Tony Silber , March 22, 2022

Wine Spectator this week released rare, never-before-seen video footage of one of the wine industry’s icons, the famously reclusive Ernest Gallo, shot in 1999 on the occasion of his 90^th birthday.

Gallo, who died in 2007, was chairman of E & J Gallo Winery, the world’s largest wine company.

The interview, the first and last of its kind, was a Q&A with Wine Spectator Editor and Publisher Marvin R. Shanken,  filmed at Gallo’s home in Modesto, California. The full footage has never been shown publicly, until now.

“This long-withheld film was a labor of love,” Shanken said in a press release on Monday. “To those that don’t really know Ernest Gallo, he was like the Henry Ford of the wine business. He created the market through his sales and marketing skills—along with his brother Julio’s incredible winemaking skills. [The company] put out large quantities of high-quality wine at affordable prices for millions of Americans. They helped shape what wine culture in this country is today.”

The video was created as a birthday gift to Gallo, who had just turned 90 the month before the interview was filmed on April 20, 1999. The newly released film includes an introduction by CBS sportscaster and California vintner Jim Nantz, footage from the 1999 interview; a 2008 address by Shanken on the occasion of E. & J. Gallo’s 75th anniversary; and clips from Wine Spectator’s 1983 California Wine Experience.

During two days of conversations, Gallo told Shanken about his first and very memorable wine-tasting experience at age five, and the hardships of growing up in a grape-growing family during Prohibition. By the time Gallo’s father died in early 1933, the family business was barely hanging on. But the repeal of Prohibition changed everything, and Gallo and his brother Julio started selling wine. The rest is history.

Today, the E & J Gallo brand portfolio has more than 130 brands, with sales of 100 million cases and estimated revenues of $4 billion in 2020. The company has 7,000 employees and markets its brand in 100 countries.

M. Shanken Communications also publishes Cigar Aficionado, Whisky Advocate, Market Watch, Shanken News Daily and Shanken’s Impact Newsletter.

View the full 40-minute video here.