Gallo’s first Modesto home, its Founders Building, gets mural based on 1940s ad.

Ernest and Julio Gallo launched their winery in 1933 in a small building at 11th and D streets in Modesto. The brothers would grow it into the world’s largest, headquartered half a mile east on Yosemite Boulevard.

The Gallo Founders Building, as it is now called, remains in company hands. The only indication of its history has been a plaque installed in 1994 along the 11th Street sidewalk. Ivy has obscured almost all of the facade.

Then a mural began to appear in March, modeled on a 1940s advertisement for Gallo cream sherry. It replaced a portion of the ivy that burned.

“Following exterior vandalism to the building one year ago, we embraced the opportunity to turn a challenge into a creative solution,” said an email Thursday from Krista Fontana, director of corporate communications and public relations.

Gallo does not disclose how it uses the Founders Building interior. As for the exterior, the mural was installed much like a billboard, one panel at a time. It was designed to mimic permanent ads painted onto buildings in the past. Gallo posted a time-lapse video on Instagram.

Fontana said the mural eventually will be covered by the growing ivy. She called it “a visually compelling, conversation-starting piece that invites curiosity and photo opportunities.”

The cream sherry in the ad could be used in cooking, or sipped during or after dinner. Gallo still makes it under the Sheffield and Fairbanks labels, along with port.

In the early decades, Ernest and Julio mainly used San Joaquin Valley grapes for their various wines. They ventured into Napa and other premium regions in the 1980s. Today, wines also come from the states of Washington and New York and several foreign nations.

Gallo became a hard liquor producer with brandy in 1975. It went on to add vodka, gin, rum, tequila and others, including distribution for other companies. Earlier this month, it acquired a Kentucky bourbon distiller.

Gallo has about 7,000 employees around the world. It all grew from the two brothers in that humble building. They had borrowed a winemaking book from a public library and got to work just after Prohibition ended.

The mural, Fontana said, is intended to look “as though it had always existed on the building, evoking the classic era of hand-painted wall advertisements.”

This story was originally published April 10, 2026 at 4:25 PM.

John Holland

The Modesto Bee

209-578-2385

John Holland covers agriculture, transportation and general assignment news. He has been with The Modesto Bee since 2000 and previously worked at newspapers in Sonora and Visalia. He was born and raised in San Francisco and has a journalism degree from UC Berkeley.