(MPNNow) - At the close of World War II, a former sauerkraut factory turned winery became the home for Canandaigua Industries.

The old San Gabriel Wine Company on Buffalo Street was acquired by the Sands family in 1945 and Marvin Sands became its president. Marvin Sands learned about the wine industry from his father M.E. [Mack] Sands who had opened a winery in North Carolina in 1936, and oversaw the southern operations of the winery based in Virginia until 1948 when all wine production was transferred to the facility in Canandaigua.

In 1945, Sands hired eight workers to produce and sell bulk wine in wooden barrels to companies that would bottle them on the East Coast. Within two years, business was profitable enough that he was determined to produce and sell wine using his own name brands. Concentrating mostly on regional markets, Canandaigua Industries new brand of wines were moderately successful. In those early years, dessert or sweet wines were far more popular than table wines.