In what has been the most hotly-anticipated merger of the last 12 months, Jean-Charles Boisset and Gina Gallo tied the knot in San Francisco at the weekend.
Reports of the engagment of Boisset, head of the American arm of France’s third largest wine company and Gallo, grand-daughter of Julio Gallo and head winemaker of one of the biggest producers in the world, first came out at least a year ago.
And on Saturday the pair were married in a private ceremony at San Francisco’s Fairmount Hotel attended by about 100 guests, ‘many of them members of the large Gallo family’, American magazine Wine Enthusiast reported.
Gallo and Boisset are powerful figures in two of the most dynamic wine families in the world. Boisset is president of Boisset Family Estates, which has recently acquired Napa’s Raymond Vineyard and Cellar amongst other properties.
The parent company, the huge and long-established Burgundy negociant, has just finalised the purchase of Burgundy producer Antonin Rodet, and has interests in Chile, Uruguay and Canada.
Jean-Charles Boisset himself is known for his business acumen and flair. He was one of the first to put Burgundy under screwcap, as well as an early adopter of Tetra-Pak with his French Rabbit range.
Gina Gallo is a much-travelled ambassador for Gallo – the world’s second-biggest wine company after Constellation – as well as winemaker.
Whether the union will result in a Gallo-Boisset joint venture in terms of a new blend, the future is uncertain. In an interview in Meininger’s Wine Business International in June, Boisset said, ‘the only venture is one of love, nothing else. The idea of an international blend doesn’t attract us much.’
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Written by Adam Lechmere
