Gallo, the largest wine company in the world, operates three of the biggest wineries globally, located in California. Despite not typically inviting journalists for tours, their extensive facilities can be explored using Google Earth.
The company, which dropped the "E&J" from its name in 2024, runs a bottling and shipping winery in Modesto, along with wineries in Fresno and Livingston, the latter being the largest. They also manage several smaller wineries.
The impressive scale of Gallo’s operations includes mammoth tanks that are 50 feet in diameter and height, with the capacity to hold 2.8 million liters of wine each. In 2000, they reported that they collected about one-third of California’s total grape harvest, managing 90,000 acres of vineyard land and producing more wine than all of Australia combined.
By 2011, Gallo had expanded to eight wineries with 60 brands, crushing 450,000 tons in Livingston and 535,000 tons in Fresno. Their production was staggering, with estimates suggesting they bottled around 950 million bottles in 2001 and sold 62 million cases in the USA by 2006, claiming about a quarter of the American table wine market.
In 2011, the Modesto facility bottled and shipped 90 million gallons of wine, while Livingston produced 160 million gallons, and Fresno contributed 110 million gallons. Gallo also manufactures its own glass bottles, producing an impressive 2 million per day.
For more detailed insights, visit Wine Anorak.