Word: gallos
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After coping with a post-9/11 slowdown and an oversupply of grapes, the global wine market is regaining the tremendous growth it enjoyed in the '90s, and one leading reason is Gallo. The world's second largest wine company, with estimated sales of $3 billion (after publicly held Constellation Brands, whose series of acquisitions brought sales to $4.1 billion), family-run Gallo has the industry's top research and marketing staff and has become legendary for seizing on consumer trends--whether they were jug wines in the '70s, Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers in the '80s or development...
...Gallo's success with the French Red Bicyclette has terrified some wine aficionados, who are worried that the globalizing wine market will become defined by dumbed-down wines, homogenized for simple American taste buds. To purists, a wine's flavors should be determined by terroir--the taste of the land where the grapes grow, the minerals in the soil, the amount of sun, wind and rain to which the grapes are exposed. "Authenticity is important," says Italian enologist Stefano Chioccioli. "We already have China invading us with products with no history. Wine is the fruit...
Most people who buy Black Swan or Red Bicyclette probably don't realize they are drinking a Gallo wine. The Gallo brand appears nowhere on the labels. But Gallo's partnerships with international wineries--in Italy, Australia, New Zealand and France--account for an estimated 10 million cases of the company's sales. (That's still a puddle compared with the ocean of California wine Gallo produces every year--65 million cases in 2004, or half of all grapes grown in California.) Gallo formed its first partnership 10 years ago when executives saw how Americans who had been guzzling Chardonnay...
...purists are right that Gallo takes a nontraditional approach to selecting which wines to distribute. It asks consumers what they want--which is second nature in most industries but not the wine biz. Gallo interviews thousands of American wine drinkers every year, inquiring about the flavors they like and their buying habits. The company has used those data to craft flavor profiles for all major wine types. Each profile is a three-dimensional grid charting the possible flavors and consumers' reactions to them. Gallo's winemakers are then encouraged to craft wines that will get a favorable rating...
...Gallo (like most other wineries) won't reveal its winemaking techniques but maintains that there are no additives in its wines and that its French and Italian wines meet those countries' strict production laws. But winemakers today have many techniques at their disposal: they can choose grapes carefully and blend grapes from several different vineyards. During fermentation, they make dozens of choices, such as what the temperature in the tank should be and what kind of yeast should be added. Reverse osmosis can also be used to remove excess water or alcohol; micro-oxygenation can soften a red wine...