The times, like many before and many after, were tough, especially for a dirt-poor family of recently arrived immigrants. Nobody of any respectability would hire them, and so they turned to the black market to earn their way in the new country.

Fortunately, if one can use that word in this context, the young Gallo boys grew into an era ripe with opportunity– Prohibition. For those willing to bend the rules, and pay off the legal establishment, opportunity was bounded only by how much booze you could supply to a thirsty populace.

From their headquarters in California’s rich Central Valley, the Gallo boys delivered trainloads of Dago Red to such famous customers as Al Capone in Chicago and his mafia confederates along the New Jersey seaboard.

This illegal activity gave the Gallo brothers the economic springboard they needed to build a post-Prohibition business that grew into the world’s greatest wine empire. This history leads us to ask…

What’s in that jug of Gallo?