INDUSTRY: American Wine Comes of Age

RISING starkly from the dusty fields of California's San Joaquin Valley are 100 huge metal cylinders that look like an array of petrochemical tanks. Alongside them are rows of mostly windowless industrial buildings that sprawl over an area as large as six city blocks. This symbol of technological power is not a pulsing refinery; it is the E. & J. Gallo Winery of Modesto, Calif. Inside the cylinders, millions of gallons of California Burgundy, Chablis and rosé age. Inside the buildings, squads of chemists pore over their latest oenological formulations, while viniculturists...

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