When Liu Lan entertains clients at her Shanghai cosmetics shop, she pulls out a jug of Gallo's Carlo Rossi red wine.
"The taste is fresh and it's easy to get used to," said Liu, 32, who thinks the big bottle "looks special, different from other wines."
The cosmetics shop in crowded Shanghai represents just how much has changed since Ernest and Julio Gallo founded E.& J. Gallo Winery in an industrial section of rural Modesto after Prohibition ended in 1933.
With annual sales of $3.5 billion -- about 70 million cases of wine -- Gallo is the nation's largest winemaker. One out of every five glasses of wine drunk in America is a Gallo wine.
Gallo brands are sold in 90 countries including much of Europe, and the company brings foreign wine to the U.S.: Malbec from the mountains of Argentina, Chianti from Tuscany, Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, Shiraz from South Eastern Australia and Pinotage from Swartland, South Africa.
"We can compete very well with anywhere in the world," said Joseph Gallo in a rare interview. He is the current chief executive and son of Ernest.
And as successive generations of Gallos take over running the business -- 15 family members work for the company -- it's clear they plan to compete anywhere in the world.
As the company turns 75 this year amid public and private festivities, outsiders say that the Gallo family has gained a measure of peace from the tensions and tragedies that have chased it through the generations. Over the years, the Gallos have had to overcome bitter divisions and even a suspected murder-suicide.
The roots of the family's wine tradition trace back to Giuseppe Gallo and Assunta Bianco, Italian immigrants who called themselves Joe and Susie after coming to the United States.
Although their sons Ernest and Julio claimed to have learned how to make wine from library books, their first exposure to the business was probably in the Bianco winery that Susie's father owned in Hanford, Calif.
Joe and Susie had an unhappy marriage. In 1933, Joe Gallo apparently shot and killed Susie and then himself, according to Ellen Hawkes, author of "Blood and Wine: The Unauthorized Story of the Gallo Wine Empire."
That was the same year Ernest and Julio started their winery in Modesto.
Divisions also plagued the brothers.
