If the Mountain Won't Come to Gallo...

WINE TALK
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Or, “…Gallo Went to the Mountain (And Plowed It Over)”. :wink:

Hey, remember when Gallo decided to make suitable huge plots of land for vines in Sonoma County by resculpting hills and filling in sloughs and stuff?


SFGate
“Gallo’s Grand Plan: It Wants to Be the Best on North Coast”
by Peter Sinton
August 20, 1996

"In Sonoma County, the Gallo wine juggernaut is literally rearranging the landscape in its drive to become not only the biggest North Coast wine producer, but the best.

"Many people still associate the Gallo brand with cheap wines produced in Modesto, but the world’s largest wine company is out to change that.

"It is estimated that only about 2 percent of Gallo’s total annual production of 55 million cases comes from Sonoma County grapes. But Gallo is pouring tens of millions of dollars into its Gallo-Sonoma brand to appeal to growing demand for fine wines, elevate its image and charge higher prices.

"Gallo owns 6,000 acres in Sonoma County, a third of it acquired this year. About 2,000 acres already are in production and another 1,000 will be planted in the next four years.

"In addition to buying existing vineyards, the intensely cost-conscious Gallos also are scooping up pastureland and slopes better suited for sheep than Chardonnay. Then they resculpt it.

"Gallo is currently giving an industrial-strength face lift to a huge hillside on the western edge of Highway 101 near Cotati. It is using its own fleet of earth-moving equipment, much of it acquired at auction following completion of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline more than a decade ago.

"On the back half of its 700-plus-acre ‘Frei Ranch’ vineyard off Dry Creek Road near Healdsburg, Gallo scraped and stockpiled thousands of tons of topsoil, lowered the hilltops by up to 15 feet, added a couple of reservoirs, redistributed the rock and replaced the topsoil.

"‘For wine-growing it’s best if the slope is no more than 20 or 25 percent,’ said Matt Gallo, 33, manager of North Coast operations. ‘We had some slopes of 40 to 60 percent so we cut them back.’

"The surgery costs about $5,000 per acre, but now the vineyards are producing grapes for Gallo’s new single-vineyard, limited-edition wines and other pricey estate-bottled varietals.

“…The company pays a lot of attention to research and development. The Dry Creek facility produces about a dozen different varieties of grapes. But it also has about 130 pilot projects making lots of wine from as little as 125 pounds of Mourvèdre, Marsanne, Tinta Cao, and other less well- known grape varieties.”

"…‘I think Gallo is good for Sonoma,’ said David Stare, owner of Dry Creek Vineyard across the road from the Gallo spread. ‘They are the only really large winery in this area doing any type of market promotion.’

“But he and others feel Gallo still faces an uphill battle [get it? :stuck_out_tongue: ] ‘They’d have a much easier time making it in the premium wine business if they dropped their name,’ said Stare. ‘But they are a proud family and they don’t want to. Their Sonoma County varietals are sound, well-made wines but they are known for cheap bulk wines.’”

"Gallo’s Sonoma Vineyards:

• ‘Asti Vineyard’ (fmr. Italian Swiss Colony), 600 acres;
• ‘Ciatti Vineyard’, 70 acres;
• ‘Stefani Vineyard’, 200 acres;
• ‘MacMurray Ranch Vineyard’ (x), 1,547 acres (y);
• ‘Laguna Ranch Vineyard’, 350 acres;
• ‘Martini & Pratt Winery’, 120 acres;
• ‘Cotati Property’ (x), 314 acres (y).

(x) - Purchased this year (y) - Not planted"


I cannot recall another vineyard development project equal in scope to that of Gallo of Sonoma.

Gallo purchased land that wasn’t ideally suited to grape cultivation. Then, with the expense of tremendous amounts of money and effort, these properties were reshaped to satisfy their needs. The work was completed using a “fleet of earth-moving equipment, much of it acquired at auction following completion of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline”! Wow!

Do not forget the legislative debacle to expand Sonoma Coast AVA’s geographic boundaries. If memory serves, that was one of Gallo’s grand efforts to boost the value of its “MacMurray Ranch”.

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Drink what you want…they’ll make more…and more…and more. I don’t know how anyone rooted in reality would ever think this was a good idea to change their image? For me it only cements the idea that this isn’t a company I have any interest in supporting.

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Umm…why dredge up an article from 22 years ago?

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LOL, my response as well. Did you hear Charles and Diana are getting divorced?

5

The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor!

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“Nothing is over until we decide it is!”

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An old article does not forestall new learning.

Other examples: Bible, Torah, Quran, etc.

In fact, some posters on this site have resorted to using the search function to find old threads, for sought-after information. [snort.gif]

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There’s a search function? Next you’ll tell me there’s a chat room.

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I think Gallo realized that their foray into “fine” wine under their own label was a bad idea. After their TCA ridden 1997 Estate Cabernet, I know I did.

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By chance, I still buy the Estate wine, but only 1996 and earlier vintages. I have been unaware of such taint.

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Wait. This isn’t erobert Parker forum, the largest wine forum on the internet??

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They took paradise and put up…an artificially created simulacrum of a vineyard?

Did they at least save some of the trees for the tree museum?

Get Joni Mitchell on the line!

14

Andy Griffith died.

15

You’re confusing Griffith with Franco

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Vineyard Slope regulations would not allow such a modification nowadays.

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Same thing happened in Gigondas some years after the war too. Lots of equipment left behind by the US Army got repurposed into earth movers.

I guess I got lucky with a bottle of the 97 Estate Cab last year - no taint.

But it was crazy sedimented. I’m trying to remember what restaurant we had that in.

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I remember touring the facility back in the summer of 2003 and during the visit, noticed large bins full of what looked like white marbles in the production area. Turned out these were actually little balls of polyethylene - the same material used in saran-wrap. Yep, they were running all of their wines through these bins to try to eradicate the systemic TCA that was discovered there.

As the LA Times article notes, the levels of TCA found were minute, but Laube was able to detect it. Was this ‘beneficial’ for the industry or perhaps Laube telling winemakers how to make their wines? :slight_smile:

Cheers.

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