E J Gallo Winery

When the E&J Gallo Winery needed some political muscle to ease federal regulations on champagne, the giant California winemaker called on a senator from Kansas for help. Bob Dole, then the Senate Republican leader, responded by pressuring the Bush administration in 1992 to abandon a proposed crackdown on labeling standards and permit Gallo to sell its inexpensive sparkling wines as "Charmat method" champagne, according to interviews and newly obtained documents.

E&J Gallo Winery and Dick Clark Productions Inc. said they've teamed up to celebrate the millennium. Clark will appear in commercials for Gallo's Ballatore Sparkling Wine and use it to toast the new year on his "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve" special. The Gallo campaign for the wine also includes in-store promotions and radio ads. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Gallo had a similar deal with Clark in 1998.

Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes need shed no tears over spilt wine. The popular acting duo, who helped make a household word out of Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler, will be retained by E & J Gallo Winery even though the ad agency that created them has dropped Gallo as a client. "We have no plans to make any changes," Daniel J. Solomon, a spokesman for Modesto-based Gallo, said Monday. "We'll continue with Bartles and Jaymes."

Angered by "vicious" magazine comments about family members of the Gallo wine dynasty, the world's largest winery announced today it has yanked $650,000 in ads from Time Inc. publications. The comments which reportedly angered Ernest and Julio Gallo were contained in a generally favorable article that appears in the Sept. 1 issue of Fortune magazine.

Winery owner Julio Gallo's wife is under investigation in the accidental death of a young mother who was killed when the Gallos' car allegedly veered into oncoming traffic on a treacherous highway south of here, a California Highway Patrol official said. Julio Gallo, 79, co-founder of the $1-billion-a-year E & J Gallo Winery, and his wife, Aileen, 76, were reported in stable condition at San Jose Medical Center on Wednesday.