Winemaking mogul Ernest Gallo has died at the age of 97.
In a statement the E& J Gallo Winery, the company he founded along with his brother Julio in 1933, confirmed that the ground-breaking businessman passed away at his home in Modesto, California.
The brothers, who started the business with just a few thousand dollars and a sparse knowledge of winemaking gained from pre-Prohibition pamphlets at the local public library, are recognised as having helped create America's modern wine market.
The company was among the first to embrace television for wine advertising and was also the first winemaker in the US to establish a national sales force, brand management and modern merchandising methods.
The E&J Gallo Winery claims that its founders were also the first to achieve "truly significant" sales abroad.
Paying tribute to Mr Gallo, Robert Koch, president of the Wine Institute, said that the American wine industry "owes an enormous amount of gratitude" to the winemaker and his brother.
"Ernest and Julio were builders: they built their company from scratch, they helped build an industry and they helped build demand for wine few could have ever imagined when they started out more than 70 years ago," he said.
Along with his younger brother, who died in 1993, Mr Gallo established his winery in a bid to take advantage of the impending end on prohibition in the US and to pay off the debts of his parents, both Italian immigrants.
The family, who purchased a small farm in Modesto, California in the 1920s, began selling grapes to home winemakers in Chicago in the latter part of the decade.
The Gallo Winery which was subsequently started by the brothers now employs more than 4,600 employees and sells wine across more than 90 countries.
Mr Gallo's son, Joseph, now chief executive of the company, said that his father believed its strength was in the fact that it was still run as a family business.
"More than anything, he believed the company's future is brighter than ever, particularly by remaining a family-owned business," he said.
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