More surprising about what gets picked up in the field or what gets mixed into the “juice”?
Maybe it should be renamed Two Buck Upchuck?.. Just saying…
Crappy article - writer really did little to check facts.
Do they add sugar? Not allowed to, so my guess is no . . . but do they add ‘grape concentrate’ which is legal? Probably - and so do wineries making wines at all different price points ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
And as far as machine picking goes, you have to raise the protein content of wines some how . . . . 
I’m w/ Larry on this one. In epee, FredFranzia is what we call “easy target”.
The more detailed article can be found at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/so-thats-why-trader-joes_b_5648730.html
Clearly, the guy has a bone to pick w/ TJ/2$Chuck. You can go down into the SalinasVlly and find all sorts of vnyds who machine pick.
Maybe the guy should out these wineries as well for all the dead animals & vermin in those wines??
ChrisKnox clearly doesn’t want you to be drinking 2$Chuck and throws out the idea that it contains rodents/bugs/vermin/birds/snakes/MOG/etc.
I am totally certain that he has never observed the grapes of FredFranzia that go into that wine, sans sorting table. My understanding is that
modern picking machines are pretty good at seperating out the MOG. Has he ever seen all the bees that get dumped into press on hand-picked
grapes?? I doubt it.
This idiot is exactly the reason that today’s wine journalism (or, more correctly…what passes for wine journalism in the blogosphere) has
fallen to the lowest/abysmal level it has ever been in history. Ohhh for the days of GeraldAsher/HarryWaugh/HankRubin/BobThompson/NormRoby. End of rant.
Tom
I can’t wait until her article about pink slime in meat, how they treat veal, or what’s actually allowed in our milk and peanut butter.
Two Buck Chuck, pink slime, white blood cell laden milk, tortured baby cow with chronic diarrhea, bug filled butters - all easily avoided; or, easily ignored.
Maybe Charles Shaw can start calling it Ortolan Wine and make it Hundred Buck Chuck!
but guyssssss Chris Knox is a wine shop buyer and manager
The majority of Chablis vineyards (including grand crus) are machine picked
Ewwwwwwwwwwww ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
+1
I find it hard to believe that Franzia has no process to sort out the MOG (materials other than grapes). Regardless, 2 Buck Chuck is really crappy wine. I have no problem drinking cheap wine, but the past few times I had 2BC, it really has been undrinkable.
If this guy doesn’t get sued, I’d be real surprised.
Dead birds in the wine? Where did he get that?
Its like a hot dog I really don’t want to know what’s in it. Parts I would guess.
The story of my life. (sigh)
The author responded with a mea culpa on Tercero’s Facebook page. (Larry Schaffer)
It seems he was quite startled that an off-the-cuff reply he made a couple of years ago showed up on Huffpost now
That’s why I stick to grapes hand-picked by the professionals. I want the pure wine where all I get is yeast naturally peeing alcohol and farting off the CO2. Or in the case of sparkling wine I get to drink yeast farts, too!
Stems!?! There are stems in my Two Buck Chuck?! Horrors! Don’t tell Zylberberg.
When I visited Australia 20 years ago, I was told that almost everything there – even the very high end wines – was machine harvested, too, because they don’t have cheap labor.
Poor quality article. I’d not point the finger at machine harvesting. One can generally say the best producers hand pick, but there are examples of exceptional machine harvested grapes. Aside from Chablis, I believe Michel Sarazin machine harvests and his wines are very good to excellent in my experience.
On a somewhat attached topic (TJ Wines), I can recommend 2 wines I have had lately:
2012 Trader Joes Reserve Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir - A steal at $9.99 a bottle. Real Pinosity for under $10??? Yes!!!
2012 Tribunal North Red Wine North Coast. Forget the price, but I think under $10. Dense ripe red.
The red wine hides the blood