A toast to the man who changed how America drinks …

Enduring an unspeakable nightmare and a family secret that he guarded at all costs, Ernest Gallo overcame unimaginable odds to achieve the American dream.

Ernest Gallo (the "E" of E & J Gallo) may have been haunted by tragedy, but that didn't deter him from his mission: putting a bottle of wine on every American table.

Gallo grew his legacy from the musty Modesto, California, dirt. From fallow acres, he practically willed the wine industry into being out of faith and tenacity as he overcame physical and emotional abuse, illness, and the near destruction of the family he was determined to save.