INDEX: Barefoot Wine Brand Merchandising Displays

INDEX:
Barefoot Wine Brand
Merchandising Displays

Barefoot Wine Logo Deboss Branding – Barefoot Wine Brand Merchandising Displays

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This Barefoot Wine Brand Merchandising Displays index page aggregates links
to all posts and photos of retail merchandising, display, and outfitting
as well as deep Background courtesy of Wikipedia.

BACKSTORY: Gallo is an American wine producer and distributor headquartered in Modesto, California. Previously called E & J Gallo Winery, it was founded in 1933 by Ernest Gallo and Julio Gallo of the Gallo family, and is the largest exporter of California wines. It is the largest wine producer in the world by volume, producing over 3% of the world’s annual supply of 35 billion bottles with an annual revenue of $5.3 billion.^[1]^[2] It is also the largest family-owned winery in the United States.^[3] Gallo employs about 3,500 people in Modesto and 2,500 in other parts of the state, country, and world.^[4]

During Prohibition in the United States, Ernest and Julio Gallo grew grapes and sold them to Eastern states where home winemaking was allowed.^[5]

On June 14, 1933, Ernest Gallo filed an application with the Prohibition administration to open a bonded wine storeroom in San Francisco. On June 20, his application was rejected. He was advised that in order to open a storeroom, he had to own a bonded winery. And in order to be bonded as a winery, he had to own vineyards. Ernest and Julio then took steps to bond a winery in the name of their newly formed partnership, E & J Gallo. They had stationery printed that included two designations next to their name: “winery” and “grape growers and shippers”. Their father’s estate owned both the grape growing and shipping businesses as well as the vineyards required to establish a winery, at that juncture. Ernest applied on this letterhead to the Board of Alcohol for approval. He wrote that he and Julio were “grape growers with over 400 acres of grapes”.^[6]

The two brothers started the winery in the fall of 1933,^[7] following the repeal of Prohibition.^[1] Ernest and Julio were competing against larger, more established, and better financed companies, including more than 800 wine companies established in California in the first few years after the repeal of Prohibition. Their starting capitalwas less than $6,000 ($140,494 inflation-adjusted to 2024), with $5,000 of that borrowed by Ernest from his mother-in-law, Teresa Franzia.^[8] The brothers learned the craft of commercial winemaking by reading old, pre-Prohibition pamphlets published by the University of California which they retrieved from the basement of the Modesto Public Library.^[9] Julio was focused on the production of wine, and Ernest on its sale.^[10] They had just one tractor, and would run it permanently on 12/12 hour shifts. In the first year of activity, the brothers produced 177,000 gallons of wine.^[5] An E. & J. Gallo Winery early brand was Cream of California for wine and brandy.

In 1957, E & J Gallo launched the fortified cheap white wine Thunderbird. In 1962, E & J Gallo launched the one gallon finger-ringed jug of cheap wine, Red Mountain, later Carlo Rossi Red Mountain, named after a winery above Oakdale that closed during Prohibition.^[11]^[12]^[13] Later, the US market began to move away from cheap wines.^[5] Ernest and Julio were the first to introduce brand management and modern merchandising to the wine industry, and led the way in bringing new products to store shelves. They were first in breakthrough quality initiatives such as long-term grower contracts for varietal grapes and grape research programs.^[9] They were also first to establish a truly significant foreign sales and marketing force to export California wines overseas.^[1] They pioneered wine advertising on television and launched many wine advertising campaigns. (One of these helped to popularize “Hymne”, composed and performed by Vangelis, by featuring it as background music in some of its television commercials.)^[9] The company’s 1960s ads were focused on associating their US-made wines with Europe’s fine wine regions.^[14] In 1983, for the first time, the company put a vintage date on one of its wines, the 1978 Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon.^[15]

During the 1980s and 1990s, E & J Gallo bought wine labels from Europe and Australia.^[5] By 1993, E & J Gallo was the country’s largest winery, with a 25% share of the American wine market.^[7] Julio Gallo died in a car accident on 2 May 1993.^[10] Ernest died in 2007, and his son Joe Gallo took over the company as CEO.^[15]

In 2002 E & J Gallo purchased the Louis M. Martini Winery, giving the company its first Napa Valley location.^[16] On September 14, 2007, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announced a partnership with E & J Gallo Winery to produce a brand of wine labelled “Martha Stewart Vintage”.^[17] In 2011, E & J Gallo sold Hornsby’s hard cider to the C&C Group for an undisclosed amount^[18] and partnered with Boisset Collection to purchase the Mondavi estate.^[19] In 2017, E & J Gallo Winery bought the Napa Valley Stagecoach vineyard.^[20]

In April 2019, Constellation Brands Inc. announced a deal to sell wine brands, including Clos du Bois and Mark West, to E & J Gallo Winery for $1.7 billion.^[21]^[22] The deal was later amended, twice, to exclude sparkling wine brands Cook’s California ‘Champagne’ and J. Roget American ‘Champagne’ (both retained by Constellation for four years post final agreement), Paul Masson Brandy which was divested to Sazerac Company Inc., Sheffield Cellars and Fairbanks divested to Precept Brands LLC, and its High Color Concentrates division was divested to Vie-Del Company.^[23] for an adjusted price agreement of $1.1B, of which $250 million is an earnout if brand performance provisions are met over a two-year period after closing.^[24]^[25]Agreement was finalized on January 6, 2021, for $810 million.^[26]

In 2020, the University of California, Merced was planning on opening its first new school since it launched, the Ernest & Julio Gallo School of Management, a multi-disciplinary school encompassing many different disciplines.^[27]

In 2024, more than 90 years after Ernest and Julio founded their winery, the company simplified its name to just Gallo.^[28] (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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