Working Class Wine

I used to work dancing bull wineat a Southern California technology company three blocks from a Trader Joe's. One of the partners there, someone who, unlike me, knows a thing or twelve about wine, mentioned "Two Buck Chuck" as part of a joke at a company party. I asked him what it was; he explained. Another partner, also quite knowledgeable, told me that despite the reputation as a cheap bottle of wine, some of the Charles Shaw wines (better known "Two Buck Chuck") —he mentioned the Chardonnay in particular—are reliable, drinkable table wines. In 2004 at the 28th Annual International Eastern Wine Competition, the 2002 Charles Shaw Shiraz $1.99 a bottle outranked 2,300 other wines, winning the prestigious double gold medal. In 2007 the Charles Shaw $1.99 Chardonnay surpassed several rather more expensive, and better lineage Chardonnays in a well-respected California competition in 2007. So it's not just a matter of bargain basement pricing; there is, at least sometimes, recognizable quality.

I suspect the partners at my former job—three white males who each took home well over a 100K a piece, all of them successful entrepreneurs—probably did (and do) buy the top rated wines in Wine Spectator. But they're not the market for Charles Shaw's "Two Buck Chuck," a wine produced by the Frank Franzia's Bronco Wine Company and sold exclusively through Trader Joe's. Technically, the wines are $1.99 a bottle at California Trader Joe's; at other Trader Joe's they may be as much as $3.49 a bottle.

In a Forbes article "The Whine Critics" on the nature of the online wine community, and changes in wine buyers and buying, Eric Arnold notes:

About 30% of American adults are wine drinkers, according to the Wine Market Council (WMC), and they spend $30 billion a year on fermented grape juice. But more than two-thirds of what consumers buy costs less than $10 per bottle—not the stuff the critics spend too much effort concerning themselves with. It's relatively easy to assume that the vast majority of wine drinkers don't pay attention to wine critics in the first place.

I think that Eric Arnold has a point. I think we've reached that tipping point in America where people are interested in wine as an everyday thing, wine as a beverage, rather than a statement of cultural superiority. And Fred Franzia's realization that America has reached that tipping point resulted in the creation of "Two Buck Chuck."

"Two Buck Chuck" is the brain child of Fred Franzia (same family name as the boxed wine Franzia, but no corporate connection). It began as a purchase of wine surplus, blended and bottled under the name of an old winery Franzia bouth. Much to everyone but Franzia's surprise, Franzia began buying vineyards and surplus California wine up, and blending and bottling. Franzia's business partner and cousin John blends the wines, with an eye to creating a predictable result—not, I am told, the goal of most blends, which are based on crafting a year-by-year unique wine. But Franzia is creating bulk wines, not small batch bourbons or artisan wines; the vintage year is not really the point. These are wines to be drunk with dinner, now, tonight; not stashed for tomorrow.

It's worth noting that despite the associations with "Napa California" on the bottles, Charles Shaw grapes may not, and probably do not, hail from Napa, but are instead from Central California. But because the Charles Shaw label was grandfathered in before the California law regulating the appellation, it's quite legal to retain Napa on the label. Today Bronco is the fourth largest California wine company (after E. J. Gallo, Constellation Brands, and The Wine Group). Bronco's labels are neatly arrayed in terms of pricing tiers: Charles Shaw, Crane Lake, ForestVille, Forest Glen, and Salmon Creek (exclusively for restaurants). This year, Franzia launched his Down Under line of Australian Chardonnay, targeting Australian wine producer Yellowtail in a deliberate challenge for the over-five-under-ten dollar market.

I've written before about my parents buying "jug wine,the 60s and 70s ancestor of box wine from an era when Gallo and Riunite flourished. The popularity of "Two Buck Chuck" is a slightly different phenomenon than that of box wine—and not just because varietal wines are being very carefully marketed (Charles Shaw now includes Chardonnay, White Zinfandel, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Beaujolais Nouveau style wine under the name Valdique). More recently, Fred Franzia has been producing Pinot Grigio that, along with the other varieties fall under the broad umbrella of Two Buck Chuck., but because they seem to be targeting a different consumer than my parents' generation; these are consumers of table wine who have seen the movie Sideways, even if they don't read Wine Spectator. These are people who know that Chardonnay is a variety of grape, not a brand. And honestly, I think too the snob value of wine-in-a-bottle-with-a-cork helps. Most of all though, I think the fact that the brand was launched by yuppie food store Trader Joe's helped. It will be interesting to see what happens with Trader Joe's own branded discount wine line "Trader Moon," at roughly $5.99 a bottle for Cabernet Sauvignon, White Zinfandel, Viognier, and Sangiovese.

Despite walking to Trader Joe's almost every day at my lunch hour, back in Southern California, I haven't tried "Two Buck Chuck" which I understand in Washington is technically $3.49 buck Chuck. I plan to. But I notice in an awful of lot of the online reviews and comments by people who really do know more about wine than I do, that they are almost as dismissive of box wine, and other under $10.00 a bottle wines as they are of Charles Shaw. One of the comments I here, over and over again, is that "those people" who buy Charles Shaw, or Barefoot Wines, or the lower priced "entry tier" wines from Snoqualmie, Hogue, and Columbia Crest, or Sutter Home or Meridian winery "might as well be drinking beer."

There's a less than subtle social statement embedded however shallowly in the "might as well be drinking beer" comment. Beer is for "working class" people. Which brings us right back to my assertion that this new American market Eric Albert notes contains people who are interested in wine as an everyday thing, wine as a beverage, rather than a statement of cultural superiority.

I'm really not interested in cultural superiority. In fact, I like beer. Mind, I haven't tried the traditional American beers yet, since I live in an area with lots of microbrews on tap and in the bottle, but I like Peroni Nastro Azzurro Lager, which seems to fill the equivalent slot in Italy. I also like wine. I like one or the other with my dinner, pretty much every night. I'll go to a new microbrew to try their beer, and to a local winery to try their wine. And quite honestly, I like wine I can afford to enjoy regularly, that's enjoyable, that is enhanced by good food and that enhances good food. So I'm going to go pour a glass of the $5.99 Trinity Oaks 2006 Pinot Noir we just picked up, and in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to try Charles Shaw, and yeah, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. And I'm going to confess to scoring a case of Dancing Bull 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon at $2.39 a bottle, because they've changed labels. You know what? It was pretty good.