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Jerome Tuccille

Gallo Be Thy Name
The Inside Story of How One Family Rose
to Dominate the US Wine Market.

Click here to listen to an audio interview with author Jerome Tuccille

It seems Jerome Tuccille likes to dig into people’s lives. A Vice President at T. Rowe Price, Mr. Tucille is a broker and financial analyst by trade. He is an authority on American business and the author of 25 books, including biographies of Alan Greenspan, Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump. But he’s a story teller too. His fascinating newest book Gallo be Thy Name, is, as its subtitle indicates, The Inside Story of How One Family Rose to Dominate the US Wine Market.

Once you start reading Gallo be Thy Name you can’t put it down: from the beginning with the double murder of Joe and Susie Gallo at their Fresno Ranch, -- maybe murder, maybe suicide; it is like the God Father of the wine market in the brutal style of the Coen brothers, except that this book is no fiction.
It is a thorough research into the lives of the iconic brothers Ernest and Julio Gallo, sons of Italian immigrants who in the early 1900's overcame dire poverty, riding over - and often creating - the turbulent currents of history, to become the most successful wine company in the world.
Listen as Jerome Tuccille, tells us what brought him to research and write this tale of passion, toil, power, a multi-billion dollar business achieved through brilliance, cunning and crime.

F&WT: It all started with Giuseppe and Michelo Gallo bribing local police, Federal Agents, and elected officials all across the nation to sell bootleg wine. Who were the Gallos, really?

F&WT: How did they get involved in the “plonk” business and in the illegal world of wine during the Great Depression?

F&WT: What is Dago Red? Did Ernest Gallo really get involved with the Mob and Al Capone?

F&WT: Who was their brother Joe - or Joseph -and why was Ernest Gallo so hung up on the family name?

F&WT: Rooted in the dominant Ernest, the story of the Gallo family is the other side of the coin called “The American Dream” in the beginning and mid-20th century. Click here. Listen as Jerome Tuccille relates how nothing ever stopped Julio and Ernest in the pursuit of the market domination and expansion of their vineyards.

F&WT: They made their fortunes selling wine-based drinks like Thunderbird and Ripple. How did they ever get over the image of plonk makers?

F&WT: Ernest Gallo and Cesar Chavez, the leader of the Union Farm Workers, locked horn in the 70’s over unionizing the farm workers in California’s Central Valley. It was the first time Ernest met his match. An epic battle.

F&WT: Ernest demanded from his children to be what he wanted them to be. Did it work out?

F&WT: Ernest Gallo was a genius in marketing and Julio was a great wine maker. What can the Gallos be credited for in the winemaking industry?

F&WT: The economic landscape of Sonoma was irreversibly altered along with the physical landscape, “from a sleepy, jug-wine business to a highly technical, capital intensive premium wine business” because of the Gallos’ initiative. How did this happen?

F&WT: We’ve just returned from a trip to Sonoma where so many wineries have become Gallo properties and are making wines under their original labels, like McMurray Ranch for example. What is the Gallo philosophy today?

F&WT: The double murder of Joe and Susie Gallo still overshadows the family story. Is that true even today? SIMONE Gallo be Thy Name is fascinating and reads like a movie. Is it going to become one?

Jerome Tucille’s book has just been released and is available in book stores nationwide and on www.amazon.com,

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