Galleano Winery

The Cucamonga Valley received its name from the area’s native inhabitants, called the “Cucamonga” Indians by Spanish-speaking invaders, the name being surely modified from the indigenous equivalent. During the era of Mexican occupation of Alta, California, these Indians would labor in the first agricultural efforts of non-native inhabitants, including tending vineyards. Historical accounts of the history of the Valley’s viticulture industry typically identify Tiburcio Tapia, a dedicated soldier, sometime smuggler and politician, as the area’s first vintner. In 1839, Tapis, a prominent Los Angeles citizen who also served as the alcalde, or mayor, of the Los Angeles pueblo, petitioned for a grant of Cucamonga lands and was awarded thirteen-thousand acres from the Mexican Governor of Baja, California, Juan B. Alvarado. Adjacent to the Rancho Santa Anita del Chino, Tapia’s Ranch de Cucamonga covered much of the area we know today as Alta Loma, Etiwanda, Cucamonga, Upland, and Ontario. Activity on the Rancho lands would prove the area as a prime candidate for the viticulture and later citriculture that would follow. 

In the 1860s, the enlarged vineyard of the Cucamonga Rancho, covering over one-hundred-fifty acres, set the standards for others who would come to seek a living or a fortune in viticulture, including George Haven, Daniel Milliken, Secundo Guasti, John Klusman, Morton Post, and the Ballou-Hofer family, to name a few. Isaias W. Hellman, a German immigrant, held a mortgage on the rancho and purchased the entire thirteen-thousand-forty-five acres on November 17, 1870. Hellman in turn sold much of the Rancho lands to several different investors, including a Portuguese sea captain named Joseph Garcia. 

Purchasing over twelve-thousand acres from Captain Garcia, George and William Caffey quickly established two model colonies, Etiwanda in 1881 and Ontario in 1882, and were the first to harness water for irrigation from the many creeks running from the San Bernardino Mountains above. Soon citrus and a wide range of other fruits and nuts joined grapes as the valley’s agricultural products. The promise of viticulture remained strong, and the old Cucamonga Ranch vineyard and winery remained in continuous operation until the early part of the twentieth century. The Cucamonga Rancho winery was joined by the extensive plantings of two disenchanted gold-seekers, George Haven and Daniel Milliken. Unlike the Chaffey brothers, the partners practiced dry farming on their six-hundred-forty-acre vineyard. Upon the dissolution of the Haven-Milliken partnership, Ida Haven Thomas and her husband, Hugh consolidated the winery and purchased the old Rancho winery in 1920. 

Domenic Galleano and his wife, Lucia, immigrated to the United States from the village of Magliano Alpi in northern Italy in 1913. The young couple settled in the Los Angeles area where their first child, Bernard (Nino) was born. In 1918, the Galleanos joined the George Borra family in purchasing the three-hundred-acre Bonita Ranch located in the Chino-Ontario area and gained their first agricultural experience in Southern California. There they connected with a growing Italian community in the adjoining Cucamonga Valley.  

By 1927, the Galleano’s daughter, Madalenna, was born and the family purchased the one-hundred-eighty-acre Cantu Ranch in the Wineville area of Cucamonga Valley, thus starting their own winemaking business. The property was purchased from Anna D. de Cantu whose husband, Colonel Esteban Cantu, served as Governor of Baja, California. The Galleanos began their winemaking in the basement of their new home shortly after relocating, remodeling their rudimentary basement with concrete walls, floors, and drains.  

Domenic Galleano’s work remodeling, planting vineyards, and preparing a space for wine storage, took place despite the major blow to the Cucamonga valley’s expanding vineyards, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1919, known simply as “Prohibition”. This national ban on the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol posed new challenges to the valley’s many winemakers. Much was at stake, as in 1920, Cucamonga Valley had over twenty-thousand acres in grape cultivation. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the area’s wine industry revived.  

Galleano Winery, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed December 30th 2020. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123860468.

OUR HISTORY, Galleano Winery. Accessed January 22nd 2021. https://www.galleanowinery.com/ourhistory.