Vintage for the Ages

Written by Mike Stepanovich

Don Galleano was having a heck of a time with his new cellphone. Don is old school and new technology confounds him. His new phone, complete with all the bells and whistles his son Dominic suggested he needed, was ringing, and Don couldn’t figure out how to answer it. Finally, in frustration, he yelled, “Dominic! How the hell do you answer this damn thing?”

The scene is instructive because Don is a man of tradition, for whom the few remaining old vineyards of the Cucamonga Valley are like children. He nurtures them, cajoles them, occasionally even yells at them, but few—if any—people in the wine business are more passionate about their vineyards or their work than Don Galleano.

His winery is like a California wine museum. He still uses equipment straight out of history books. He hosts visitors in the Craftsman-style bungalow built by his parents in the 1920s and moved to its current location in the 1940s, part of Cantu-Galleano Ranch. It’s the home in which he grew up.

His tasting room is small, part of another building, and built in the late 1940s. The original estate vineyard spreads westward from the ranch and winery complex. Its vines, zinfandel planted in 1947, look a bit tired. Don just shakes his head. “[This year] was headed for greatness,” he said, “until two days, a week apart, in early fall when the temperatures spiked to 111 degrees. That really hammered the vintage. So much promise...” he let the thought hang.

His vineyard is an island now, in the westernmost corner of Riverside County where it converges with San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, surrounded by massive distribution centers. The dichotomy is startling: glass, concrete, and steel buildings abutting a piece of history.

Anyone who loves California wine and its history should visit Galleano Winery, because I know of no other place in California where the past, present, and future converge as they do here. And from Bakersfield, it’s a day trip, about the same amount of time as it takes to get to Paso Robles’ west side, about two and a half hours. It’s worth the ride.

Galleano Winery harkens back to a time when the Los Angeles area—including the Cucamonga Valley—was the state’s biggest wine region, a time when agriculture, not high-rises, was still a major Los Angeles economic component, a time when wine was king. In 1950, Los Angeles County was still the nation’s—yes, the nation’s—number one agricultural county.

At the beginning of Prohibition, in 1920, Los Angeles County had 256 wineries and 22,000 acres of vineyard land in production, according to the Los Angeles County Wine History at Cal Poly Pomona.

Los Angeles County’s rich wine history includes Joseph “Don Jose” Chapman, a prominent Southern California pioneer, who planted a commercial vineyard of Mission grapes in 1824, followed a few years later by another vineyard planted by William Wolfskill. In the 1830s, Jean Louis Vignes from Bordeaux brought French cuttings to Los Angeles and planted them, soon surpassing in quality Chapman’s and Wolfskill’s sturdy Mission wines. This was some two decades before the famed Hungarian count, Agoston Haraszthy, brought European varieties to Northern California and is credited with launching the California wine industry.

Today Los Angeles’ wine industry is a shadow of its former self, but it’s there nonetheless. It’s on the periphery, pushed to the fringe. So while most people don’t think of Los Angeles as “wine country,” in fact it once was and still has a remnant of that bygone era.

Don Galleano is intent on preserving what’s left of that era. He wages what often seems like a one-man crusade to save Southern California’s vineyards from the developers’ maw. He now controls the historic Collins Ranch and its old Grenache vines, adjacent to the Ontario Airport. Some years back, Collins Ranch was destined for the developer’s bulldozer. So close was it to being pulled out that Hart Winery in Temecula, who had used those grapes to reap an inordinate number of gold medals and best-of-shows at various wine competitions, put on its Grenache Rosé label, “Collins Ranch, Final Harvest.” Then Galleano got involved. Next year, Hart put on his label, “Second Annual Final Harvest.” When it reached “Fifth Annual Final Harvest,” he stopped.

Galleano’s wines are impressive. I love to collect zinfandels from different parts of the state, and Galleano’s, from the historic Cucamonga Valley, has its own unique characteristics that differentiate it from zinfandel grown in other parts of the state. In addition to his own vines, he also has access to Lopez Ranch zinfandel, planted in the 1920s in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It’s special wine.

During a recent visit, Don’s son Domenic grilled some sausages and chicken, while Don sautéed together some beans, tomatoes, and onions with some olive oil and some chili verde he said one of his employees made for a hearty midday repast around his kitchen table. For wine, he walked across the courtyard to the winery and tapped off some 2009 zinfandel in a pitcher. Simple. Delicious. It’s how wine and food should be enjoyed.

Don likes to tell his family’s history: It began in 1913 when a young Domenico Galleano came to Southern California from his native Piedmont in Italy. He worked and saved his money looking for the land he visualized. In 1927, he purchased the Cantu Ranch built sometime around 1900. He was excited by the sandy, alluvial soil of the valley that had washed down from the San Gabriel Mountains to the north, and knew that it was exactly what he had been looking for. He planted his vineyards in 1927, ready to make his dream a reality, and when Prohibition ended in 1933, he opened the winery. He eventually handed the winery’s reins to his son Nino, who in turn handed them to his son Don. Dominic is now learning the ropes.

Galleano is the Cucamonga Valley’s largest producer of wine and largest shipper of wine grapes in Southern California. Galleano Winery’s Zinfandel symbolizes the valley’s history: during Prohibition, heads of households throughout the country were permitted to make 200 gallons of wine for personal use, and Cucamonga Valley supplied Zinfandel grapes by the trainload.

However, development still continues to threaten what’s left of the Cucamonga Valley’s once thriving wine industry. Don said another hundred acres from which he used to get grapes has succumbed to developers. That leaves Don with about 300 acres that he controls. A few other growers still farm about 200 acres.

One time I asked him how much acreage he had; 400 acres, he said. I asked him how many total were in the valley; 600, he said. The catch in his voice gave him away. No one loves his land or what it represents more than Don Galleano.

Article appeared in our 27-5 Issue - December 2010