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Two-Buck Chuck fizzles, but Fred Franzia rallies to gain a split decision
NOTE: The links embedded in this story have been updated, and thanks to our local “other Fred” for his help.
Our friend Peg Melnik — who once wrote for the Springfield News-Sun here in good ol’ Ohio before she abandoned us for California wine country and the The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, CA — has written a must-read story headlined “Fred Franzia won and lost” for WineTravel.com and its “Tasting Room” blog..
Basically, Melnik and other organizers of the tasting decided to call Fred Franzia’s bluff. Franzia, you’ll recall, is an owner of Bronco Wine Co., which produces dozens of labels of wine but is best known as the maker of Charles Shaw wines aka “Two Buck Chuck” that is sold by the truckload by Trader Joe’s grocery stores throughout the country, including Kettering.
As Melnik’s story pointed out, Franzia famously threw down the gauntlet in printed statements last year: “We challenge any Napa Valley winery to a blind wine tasting with consumers and we’ll win more than a majority of the time.”
Well, that’s exactly what Peg and others did, and it turns out that Franzia was half right. In a tasting, Two-Buck Chuch tanked, coming in last in both a consumers’ panel tasting and an experts’ panel tasting of six cabernet sauvignons (it was of course the cheapest of the six wines tasted). But another Bronco wine, the Napa Creek 2007 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($13 suggested retail), fared considerably better in the panels’ rankings against some much more expensive competition.
Make sure you read the vintage Franzia spin in the story regarding a judge’s assertion that Two-Buck Chuck might be just a tad inconsistent. It’s a thing of beauty.
A fine idea for a wine competition, resulting in the best read in the wine world this week. It’s well worth checking out.
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Comments
By Ed
July 24, 2009 9:29 AM | Link to this
I’ve been hosting blind wine tasting parties for years. The moral of the story seems to be that for the vast majority of wine drinkers you can go too cheap (two buck), or you can go too expensive (Caymus). But, there is a vast middle range of $10 to $15 wines that will do the job just fine, and odds are most will actually prefer. To buy based on price, or Robert Parker rating points is a fallacy. After all, that’s why they have wine tastings, right?
By Mark Fisher
July 23, 2009 2:28 PM | Link to this
Cathy: Links to the story have been restored. The original links to the Press Democrat story no longer work — not sure why — but the same content is posted on a blog, and those new links are now embedded.
By cathy
July 23, 2009 12:57 AM | Link to this
Dang! - the PressDemocrat.com web links have been severed! But, if I were able to read it, this sounds like a story that would make me say “HAUHH”!