So people still remember this 1986 ad as the “Gallo wines commercial with the classical music” that they loved but could never identify.

Well … it sounds like classical music.  But the composer for the pretty piece is none other than Vangelis.  (If you’re anybody who’s anybody in my particular corner of sci-fi nerd-dom, then you know that Vangelis was responsible for 1982’s legendary “Blade Runner” soundtrack.) 

The name of the piece is “Hymne,” and it was originally released on Vangelis’ 1979 album, “Opera Sauvage.”  The original song, which differs a bit from the version in the commercial, can be found right here.

I only learned while writing this that Vangelis wasn’t really “a group.”  It was a single Greek composer — Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou — who passed away in 2022.