Italian Swiss Colony

In 1881, Andrea Sbarboro founded an agricultural colony at Asti (named for Asti in Italy), primarily focused on grapes. Sbarboro's intent was to establish a profitable enterprise that would provide work for the many Italians who had migrated to San Francisco (although there were at first some Italian speaking Swiss from Ticino, thus giving the colony its name, it soon became an entirely Italian-American enterprise.) The corporation had originally been organized to allow the workers to eventually buy ownership, but this never developed, and it remained a normal joint-stock company. In 1887, a collapse in grape prices forced the company to construct a winery and begin wine production itself.

Key personnel in these early years, besides Sbarboro, were Charles Kohler, Paolo de Vecchi, and Pietro Rossi. Rossi led the company to develop its own agencies to sell directly to eastern markets; soon after the wine was being sold in Europe, South America, and Asia. The huge wine cistern (with a capacity of {{convert|500,000|USgal|ML|sp=us|disp=or|abbr=off}}) that Sbarboro had had built became a tourist attraction. By 1905, the wines had won medals at various international competitions. By 1910 the company owned over {{convert|5,000|acre|ha|abbr=off|sigfig=1}} in various holdings in the Central Valley.

As the movement for prohibition of alcohol in the United States grew, Sbarboro became a leading spokesman for wine and temperance, but lived to see the beginning of prohibition on January 16, 1920.

File:Wine vaults, circa 1940 (6359783797).jpg

The Italian Swiss Colony operation (then owned by National Distillers) was acquired in 1953 by Louis Petri of Petri Wine (founded in 1886). Petri shepherded the growth of Italian Swiss Colony as a mass-market brand; wine was shipped in tankers to be bottled in New York. Television ads featuring Ludwig Stössel (voiced by Jim Backus; yodeling by Bob Oates) with the catchphrase "The little old winemaker – me!" appeared regularly on American national television.{{cite web |title=Italian Swiss Colony Wine Commercial Jingle |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzVXJPinUjs|format=video|via=YouTube}} (Dean Martin and others recorded a song titled on a parody of that line, "Little Old Wine Drinker Me".)

The company later became part of United Vintners (organized by Louis Petri and others), then was sold to Heublein in 1969, and later sold by Heublein to Allied Growers. By 1987, the company had been renamed to ISC Wines and the brand from Italian Swiss Colony to just Colony (ISC also had other brands, including jug wine label Petri). In 1987 Allied Growers sold ISC Wines to Erly Industries, who merged it with Sierra Wine Company into a new entity. In 2015 the descendant of the company, now operating under the name Asti Winery and selling wine under the Souverain brand, and owning America's sixth-largest wine production facility, was purchased by E & J Gallo Winery from its owner, Australia-based Treasury Wine Estates.

• Petri Wine

{{Reflist|refs=

{{cite web |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-07-31-fi-302-story.html |title=New Buyer Found for Old Italian Swiss Colony Winery |author=Keppel, Bruce|date=July 31, 1987 |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=October 25, 2016}}

{{cite web |url=http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_little_old_winemaker.htm |title=Advertising Mascots - People - Little Old Winemaker |work=TV Acres |accessdate=October 25, 2016}}{{Better source needed|reason=It is just some website; how good their fact checking is I don't know|date=October 2016}}

California State Park Commission plaque, Asti, California, placed October 24, 1957 cited at {{cite web |url=http://noehill.com/sonoma/cal0621.asp |title=California Historical Landmarks in Sonoma County - California Historical Landmark 621 - Italian Swiss Colony - Southeast Corner of Asti Road and Asti Post Office Road - Asti - Founded 1881 |work=NoeHill |accessdate=October 25, 2016}}

{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/stream/petrifamilywine00petrrich/petrifamilywine00petrrich_djvu.txt |title=The Petri Family in the Wine Industry |author1=Petri, Louis | author2=Telser, Ruth (interviewer) |date=August 9, 1971 |publisher=Regional Oral History Office, University of California Bancroft Library/Berkeley |accessdate=October 25, 2016 |page=22}}

{{cite web |url=http://www.oldandsold.com/articles02/modesto1.shtml |title=Escalon-Modesto - Notable Wineries By District And Region |work=Old And Sold Antiques Auction and Marketplace |accessdate=October 25, 2016}}

{{cite book |last=Pinney |first=Thomas |title=A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings To Prohibition |url=http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft967nb63q&chunk.id=d0e8706&toc.id=d0e8337&brand=ucpress |accessdate=October 25, 2016 |year=1989 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley, California |isbn=978-0520062245 |pages=327–329}}

{{cite web |url=http://www.timoatesentertainment.com/bob-oates-music.htm |title=The Music of Bob Oates (1920-2003) |author=Oates, Tim |work=Tim Oates Entertainment |accessdate=October 25, 2016}}{{Better source needed|reason=It's a person's website. It's Bob Oates' son; you wouldn't think its the sort of thing he'd get wrong or lie about, but I assume there's no independent fact-checkers, and you never know, so...|date=October 2016}}

{{cite web |url=http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/4231859-181/gallo-to-buy-asti-winery |title=Gallo to buy Asti winery, Souverain brand |author=Swindell, Bill |date=July 20, 2015 |work=Press-Democrat |accessdate=October 25, 2016}}

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• [https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/ListedResources/Detail/621 Italian Swiss Colony Historical Landmark]

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Category:1881 establishments in California

Category:Products and services discontinued in 1987

Category:Defunct California wineries

Category:Wineries in Sonoma County, California

Category:History of Sonoma County, California