About 30 minutes before holding a 40th anniversary
ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday evening, a man wearing jeans and
a white T-shirt could be seen walking around Fortino Winery.
By Delton Lowery – Special to the Dispatch
About 30 minutes before holding a 40th anniversary ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday evening, a man wearing jeans and a white T-shirt could be seen walking around Fortino Winery.
A few minutes later, the man who had just spent part of his day sweeping the warehouse still sported the jeans but was now wearing a beige, short-sleeved dress shirt and was ready to roll.
The man was Gino Fortino, president and winemaker of Fortino Winery, and his casual style and unassuming demeanor are everything this winery welcomes.
“We’re pretty relaxed,” said Gino, who along with sister and Vice President Teri Fortino, has operated the winery since 1995.
“Every winery has their things that are just different. I’ve been to a lot of wineries, and everybody’s just quiet. In ours, there’s always food, there’s music going. Everybody’s having a good time, and that’s the difference. That’s why we just keep on going.”
The winery’s continued success was celebrated Wednesday with a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony. Gilroy Mayor Al Pinheiro, Gilroy councilmen Dion Bracco and Craig Gartman and Santa Clara County Supervisor Donald Gage were among the approximate 80 guests in attendance.
The winery will have another big day Saturday, when it will host almost 400 wine-club members as part of it’s 40th anniversary. The sold-out event will feature gourmet wine pairings and live music from bands Loop Station and House Rockers, which boasts a 13-piece ensemble complete with horns.
The winery is planning another event in October that will be open to the public.
The winery, located on 4525 Hecker Pass Highway in Gilroy, is steeped in tradition that began in Italy.
Sando Fortino began winemaking in the late 1800s. His son, Giuseppe “Joe” Fortino and grandson Michele “Michael” Fortino followed. Then came Ernest Fortino, who left Calabria, Italy – the southern tip of the boot – for the United States.
“I came from Italy in 1960 and started the winery in 1970,” Ernest Fortino said. “My wife Marie and I grabbed the bull by the horns and made it happen.”
The knowledge was there from the start.
“That’s my childhood,” Ernest said. “I was stomping grapes in the South of Italy. That’s where I learned the trade. It has been a family tradition for five generations.
“There were no machines. We had to do everything by hands and feet.”
The spouses have embraced the winery despite not having a winemaking background.
Marie is the daughter of a fisherman from the tiny Sicilian village of Isola delle Femmine near Palermo.
Gino’s wife, Jill Fortino, is a teacher at Rucker Elementary.
Teri’s husband, Kraig Youmans, is a sales representative for Central Wholesale Electrical Distributors in Salinas.
“I think that when you marry into this family, you certainly are an integral part of this business,” Teri said. “A lot of our spare time is spent doing exterior wine tastings. Last month we were in Chicago promoting Fortinos there and we were on a yacht with Ernie Banks.”
The experience was surreal.
“People wanted to take pictures and everything. We have Ernie Banks with his picture on the front of the bottle and we’re moving that in Chicago.”
Recognition also has come in the form of more than 250 medals.
The 2006 and 2008 estate-grown cabernet sauvignon won the gold medal at this year’s San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, the largest judging competition of domestically-produced wines in the U.S.
“L.A. County Fair, too,” Gino said. “We just won a gold medal on our cabernet.”
The winery’s success a big leap from humble beginnings.
“We’ve grown from an 8-by-10 tasting room to a tasting room now that facilitates a 100-foot bar and we see several thousand people a week,” Teri said in the barrel warehouse. “We have a combination of French oak, American oak, redwood and stainless steel (barrels). Our cooperage in this room is about 200,000 to 250,000 gallons of wine.”
Teri also has a real estate business, but she has never been away from the family winery.
“We learned the craft from a very early age so we were picking grapes when we were 5 and Gino was running the crusher at 12,” Teri said. “We knew how to calculate change at 8. It’s kind of the way we were brought up in an immigrant working family.”
But all good things must come to an end, sort of, for Ernest and Marie, who relinquished control of the winery in 1995.
“It was really hard for me to give it up,” said Ernest, who still is involved with the winery. “I know what I did the years before that. I was the winemaker. My son is the winemaker.”
Someday, Gino and Teri might give way to the next generation.
“I don’t know. They still got a long time,” Gino said of the timetable for when sons Nicolas, 12, and Kevin, 10, and nephew Austin, 16, might take over the business.
Jill already was trying to figure out who would do what.
“Somebody’s got to be the winemaker, the businessman and promote the winery,” she said. “Marketing the winery, that’ll be Kevin. Nick would be … winemaker and Austin would be sales.”
Relaxed as always, Gino joked with the three boys, “Who’s gonna let me retire? Who’s gonna come to work so I can retire?”
