What's out: Expensive wine. What's in: Two-buck Chuck.
A few years ago, before Trader Joe's had opened a store in my city, I was assigned a story about the Two Buck Chuck phenomenon by a national shopping magazine. Not knowing it from Welch's, I toured its bottling facility near Vallejo, California, and was blown away by the fact it tasted just fine. Sure, I'd had pricey bottles of wine that had more nuance, but I've also had pricey bottles that were no better than this stuff. Two Buck Chuck, I quickly learned, is a very cheap bottled wine that costs under $5, sometimes as little as $2 (depending on your state), that's sold only by the Trader Joe's group of grocery stores. I had expected it to be the kind of swill that you could run a car on. When I was growing up, cheap wine was bad wine. It gave you a headache or came out of a box. But Two Buck Chuck, which was labeled as Charles Shaw and given its nickname because of its insanely low price, was actually quite good. As the oenophiles might say, it was quite drinkable, particularly for an average guy like me. Who needs to pay $30 for a bottle of wine that will be empty before dinner's done? What was going on here?
A lot, as it turned out. Wine-making is a viticultural art form, to be sure, but it's also a business, and each year, countless vineyards around Northern California harvest more grapes than they use. The reason may be as simple as the fact that their barrels are too small to hold the yield, or it may be because the farmers want to earn cash by selling some of their crop.
Two Buck Chuck is made by taking those grapes, putting them together under the guidance of a vintner who tries to hit the same flavor profile season after season, and selling the result for cheap. At the time of my article, in a single day Bronco could press 6,000 tons of grapes and was putting out 1,440,000 bottles. In California, the resulting product, which often sold out as soon as the trucks delivered it, was originally $1.99, hence the nickname.
Trader Joe's is famously reclusive when it comes to courting the press. It makes Apple Computer look like Paris Hilton. So its success has been mostly a word-of-mouth thing. But fortunately, Two Buck Chuck is actually blended and bottled by an outside source, the Bronco Wine Company, which brandishes its status as a outsider to the self-important wine industry and has loudly proclaimed the many blind taste tests it was won against much more expensive stuff. Just as the American wine biz as a whole was vindicated by winning blind tastes tests in France in the '70s (the victory was the subject of the recent movie Bottle Shock), so has Two-Buck Chuck been set apart in blind taste tests (one conducted by ABC News, another by Wines & Vines) from the headache-inducing swill put out by Gallo and company when we were kids.
Now my city has a Trader Joe's, and its Two Buck Chuck has been re-labeled as Trader Joe's. It also costs $4 here, so the nickname doesn't make much sense anymore. It's more like Four Buck Joe's now, but that slug doesn't come with the same ironic taunt of nausea that its old, rebellious name had. That's okay, because the wild success of the wine has opened the door for a raft of affordable table wines, and these days, Two Buck Chuck, like Jell-o and Scotch tape, has become a name that stands for a whole category of products.
Even if you don't have a Trader Joe's in your city, you still have the equivalent of Two Buck Chuck. Although it may cost a dollar or two more, you can always find a label that suit your palate, if only you're willing to try it. It might have the name of Oak Creek, Pacific Peak, or Crane Lake, but these days, the cheap stuff is usually perfectly acceptable for a drink after work or over dinner.
A premium wine can be a thing of wonder, but so is a premium beer, and while millions of Americans are satisfied with a cold Budweiser with their dinner or over the football game, we don't seem to relax as much when it comes to our wine. And you know what? For something to drink over a Wednesday night dinner, or on the couch in front of the TV, almost all of these blends are more than adequate.
Much of the American wine industry operates, in my opinion, in shameless imitation of Europe, and that includes a perpetuation of snob appeal that has maligned wine as a luxury product and led to industry overpricing. But the longer we have solid, drinkable wines like Two Buck Chuck on hand, the more that will change. Boutique winemakers may cringe, but the little quaff that could is bringing more wine lovers into the fold.
Comparing Two Buck Chuck with a $30 bottle, there aren't many people who can tell $28 worth of a difference. Especially after the third glass.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-24-2008 @ 7:55PM
lucy said...
This is a silly article. Charles Shaw wine tastes like crappy wine. If you are on a budget, get to know you local wine shop owner. Or check out the current issue of Consumer Reports for some good wine buys. Forget the Charles Shaw.
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11-21-2008 @ 8:06PM
slephoto said...
BS. Bronco MAKES box wine. Charles Shaw was a real, quality winery that went out of business and Bronco bought the name. It's leftover swill, and is indistinguishable in taste tests from the days old box product.
It's of note that all their big "blind taste tests" were with people like first year culinary students, not anyone with knowledge of wine.
I worked for a major wine retailer when the product first came out, and one of our people went to California and brought home a large amount of Chuck. We blind-tasted it at a number of our open to the public events and it was widely derided as "undrinkable."
Worst of all, there're any number of smaller American and foreign (especially South American & Australian) producers who're making MUCH better quality product for decent prices ($6.50-$10 a bottle in the Orlando market) using better business models and more sustainable agricultural methods than Bronco.
This's another example of badly made mass marketed crap being used to pull the wool over American consumers' eyes, to their ultimate detriment.
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11-24-2008 @ 4:15PM
Jason Cochran said...
I find the statement that "not anyone with knowledge of wine" likes Two Buck Chuck to be a pretty elitist argument. I have heard it before, however. Not so strangely, it always comes from people who fancy themselves wine experts.
I feel it's true that a working knowledge of wines can enhance an appreciation for them, and people may find that a little education changes their palates. It's also true that South America and Australia both produce low-price labels. (However, they're still not as inexpensive as Charles Shaw, which has the political advantage of being American-made; many foreign-made wines are cheap in part because of government subsidies.) I'm not prepared to evaluate Bronco on its agricultural methods, and anyway, that's quite a different topic from the wine's flavor.
My theory is simple: If you like it, drink it. All the rest doesn't matter.
And a lot of people do like it. I'm not willing to call them ignorant if they're satisfied with the value.
11-24-2008 @ 4:17PM
lanipb6 said...
Two buck chuck is great. I love it. I always have it in the house. It's not exactly the best thing to bring to someone else's house, but for my own drinking purposes, it's definitely a fave.
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11-25-2008 @ 1:58PM
harvey posert said...
Dear Jason:
Very good column -- I'm the Bronco pr counsel you contacted earlier. Your "expert" responder doesn't know that Bronco makes no boxed wines; he's probably thinking of Franzia wines produced by The Wine Group. Charles Shaw has won some more medals and continues to sell 5-6 million cases a year, so while it may not suit everyone, it obviously has a fine quality to value ratio. Furthermore, it's silly to attack a wine which so many enjoy; 5% of the Charles Shaw buyers are first-time wine purchasers so we are building the business for everyone. Final note: Crane Lake is also from Bronco.
Harvey
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11-25-2008 @ 3:12PM
agneaux said...
Two Buck Chuck is actually pretty good, especially for the cheap price ($1.99 at my local Trader Joe's). The variability between bottles is probably no more than any other wine - I've had some sublimely good bottles, and a few less-than-drinkable ones, but overall it's good, and I'm buying their reds in multiple-case lots for drinking at home. For bringing to someone else's house, I'll still go with a more expensive wine, usually from Costco. But I've paid a lot more for wine that wasn't as good as TBC. - JA in Sacramento
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11-26-2008 @ 4:52PM
Lori said...
I have found Two Buck Chuck to be inconsistent. The taste of the wine varies from bottle to bottle, vintage to vintage. If you are seeking true enjoyment and pleasure, a bottle of wine to suit your palate or to accompany your meal, as a gift for your boss or for a special occassion, let a Wine Consultant assist you with your choice. Go outside the box for a new and different experience!!
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11-26-2008 @ 8:54PM
R. Ulrich said...
Two Buck Chuck is a fine wine for the average wine consumer.
Those who say it is undrinkable or inferior would probably not be able to tell the difference between Two Buck Chuck and more expensive wines in a blind taste test. I am 81 year old and have enjoyed wine for most of my life. Two Buck Chuck is perfectly acceptable for a dinner wine and I enjoy it most evenings!
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11-26-2008 @ 8:28PM
WineBuddyBob said...
I have found that some of the best wines for the price are from local nearby wineries. I live in Orlando and the Lakeridge winery which is about 30 miles North of Orlando makes two superb wines, Southern Red and Southern White. Now these are not as cheap as 2 buck chuck or the crap at Wal Mart, but they are under $10.00 a bottle and better than most $30.00 per bottle wines. Lakeridge Winery even has wine tastings and other wines as well. Its a little unknown gem with wines as good as or better than many of the fancy often overpriced Napa California wineries and they are much cheaper. If you like great tasting wines that are delicious without being bitter or leaving an awful aftertaste like most foreign red wines give Lakeridge Winery a try, you will be glad you did.
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