Attention bargain (wine) shoppers. Two Buck Chuck, the wine famous for costing $1.99 a bottle (in California at least) is now 2.5 Chuck.
Yes, Charles Shaw wines, sold only at Trader Joe’s grocery stores, saw a price increase this month, going up to $2.49 a bottle after a decade under the two-dollar line.
That’s still pretty cheap, but it’s an indicator that grape prices are picking up after a world-wide grape glut followed by recession had the market awash in bargains. With the economy slowly recovering and two difficult growing years (2010 and 2011) chipping away at inventory things are looking very different.
Charles Shaw comes from Bronco Wines, the Ceres-based company run by the iconoclastic Fred Franzia, one of the most powerful vintners in California … and the only industry power player I ever interviewed in an office tucked into a single-wide trailer.
Franzia’s family got into the wine business in California in the 19th century but later sold their company, which means the boxed Franzia wine you see in grocery stores has nothing to do with Bronco. Franzia, along with other members of the younger generation, started over with Bronco, keeping costs down by cutting out the middleman. They own the land, grow the grapes, own the bottling lines and run the trucking companies.
There seem to be two schools of thought on Charles Shaw. You either love it as great value for the price (count Mr. Vinecdote in this camp) or hate it as a commercial, mass-produced product that lacks individuality. (You’ll find the majority of wine critics over here.)
I’ve written about this wine a few times. When it first started to get popular and again when it won a blind tasting competition, much to the chagrin of the h8trs.
As for me, I’d have to say selling multiple varietals (i.e. cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, shiraz, etc. not just “red” and “white”) for less than $2 a bottle for 10 years is a remarkable achievement that probably has put a lot of wine on a lot of dinner tables that didn’t have wine before.
Cheers, thriftily.