Why Is Two Buck Chuck So Cheap???

[Mark_B]

@John Morris

@TomHill

Has he ever seen all the bees that get dumped into press on hand-picked
grapes?? I doubt it.

I remember being at Ravenswood once in the 90s at harvest time where there were many bins of grapes waiting to be crushed where the grapes were cracking under the weight of the fruit and were spontaneously fermenting. There were swarms of bees, with a layer of dead bees that had plainly succumbed to the CO2 blanket on the surface. I can’t imagine those came out before fermentation.

That must explain the “beeswax” component I get in certain wines.

[Poppy_Davis]

Kudos to Fred Franzia for taking the high road.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101910833#.

[TomHill]

@Poppy Davis

Kudos to Fred Franzia for taking the high road.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101910833#.

However, on the Facebook page of another > Napa winemaker> , a man who appears to be Knox said he wrote the Two Buck Chuck post three years ago for Quora.

I believe that post was on LarrySchaffer’s Facebook page, if I’m not correct. Nice to see Larry got promoted to a Napa winemaker.

Fred’s any easy guy to dislike in the wine biz. I’ve little doubt that all the barbs thrown in his direction are because people are so jealous of him.
Tom

[larry_schaffer]

A few things . . .

Chaptalization IS allowed in the US as noted in a previous thread - but it is NOT allowed in CA. This state has taken a different path and wanted to separate itself from the rest of the US. If I’m not mistaken it is still allowed in OR but perhaps a winemaker up there will pipe in?

As far as this Franzia story goes, Chris Knox is a nice guy who just wrote something 3 years ago to be a bit ‘sensationalistic’ and never thought it would go beyond Quora. He was blown away when I messaged him to tell him what was going on - blown away!!!

And folks can knock the wine all they want, but the ‘average consumer’ digs the stuff - and at the price point, it’s a lot cheaper than anything out there. There is no doubt that it has become THE gateway wine for many, and to me, that’s okay. Does it ‘smell and taste’ like wine? Yes, it does. Is there crazy variation from lot to lot? Yes there is. Do folks like it? Yep, they sure do - just as folks on th is board love $150+ bottles of wine that folks who regularly purchase 2 Buck Chuck would scoff at . . .

And that Napa winemaker bit, Tom - that is funny . . .

Cheers!

[Jim_Anderson]

@larry schaffer

A few things . . .

Chaptalization IS allowed in the US as noted in a previous thread - but it is NOT allowed in CA. This state has taken a different path and wanted to separate itself from the rest of the US. If I’m not mistaken it is still allowed in OR but perhaps a winemaker up there will pipe in?

As far as this Franzia story goes, Chris Knox is a nice guy who just wrote something 3 years ago to be a bit ‘sensationalistic’ and never thought it would go beyond Quora. He was blown away when I messaged him to tell him what was going on - blown away!!!

And folks can knock the wine all they want, but the ‘average consumer’ digs the stuff - and at the price point, it’s a lot cheaper than anything out there. There is no doubt that it has become THE gateway wine for many, and to me, that’s okay. Does it ‘smell and taste’ like wine? Yes, it does. Is there crazy variation from lot to lot? Yes there is. Do folks like it? Yep, they sure do - just as folks on th is board love $150+ bottles of wine that folks who regularly purchase 2 Buck Chuck would scoff at . . .

And that Napa winemaker bit, Tom - that is funny . . .

Cheers!

Allowed.

[larry_schaffer]

Thanks, Jim - but IIRC, there were many pushing for it not to allowed in OR at one point. Do you remember that?

Cheers

[TomHill]

@larry schaffer

And folks can knock the wine all they want, but the ‘average consumer’ digs the stuff - and at the price point, it’s a lot cheaper than anything out there. There is no doubt that it has become THE gateway wine for many, and to me, that’s okay. Does it ‘smell and taste’ like wine? Yes, it does. Is there crazy variation from lot to lot? Yes there is. Do folks like it? Yep, they sure do - just as folks on th is board love $150+ bottles of wine that folks who regularly purchase 2 Buck Chuck would scoff at . . .

And that Napa winemaker bit, Tom - that is funny . . .
Cheers!

I thought you’d get a chuckle out of that “promotion”, Larry.

I try 2$Chuck from time to time, usually when somebody has it set out for a party. I certainly haven’t followed the various lots from the very start, so I can’t speak
w/ authority on the various lots. I do not find the wine to be “bad”, “wretched”, “undrinkable”, or any such thing. The wine is varietally correct I find. Good grief, for those who
worship at the altar of terroir, I usually find it shows a trace of the SanJoaquinVlly terroir. What higher goal can any wine attain than to show its terroir??
So why don’t I choose to drink 2$Chuck?? It’s because the wine is so utterly boring and bland that I have no inclination to take a 2’nd glass. The wine simply
does not speak to me…has nothing to say to my palate.
Tom

[larry_schaffer]

Great way of putting things, my friend - no surprise there. And in all honesty, there are wines at all price points that do not ‘speak to me’ - and therefore I may have a single glass and then move on.

The concept that the wine is ‘wretched’ is simply an interesting one to me - never found it to be so.

Cheers

[John_Morris]

@TomHill

I try 2$Chuck from time to time, usually when somebody has it set out for a party. I certainly haven’t followed the various lots from the very start, so I can’t speak w/ authority on the various lots.

Maybe we should mobilize WBers to track different 2$C lots the way we did with the 2006 Produttori Barbaresco normale. Then Don Cornwell can build us a wiki where we can post…