Fred Franzia: A Different Sort of Wine Story

I just read Dana Goodyear’s article about Fred Franzia in the New Yorker, “Drink Up: The Man Behind Two Buck Chuck."  I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know, and that in itself is suspect. Is this the on-message story of a savvy and disciplined PR practitioner?

Geez, he even has his own website, named, what else - FredFranzia.com.

Here’s Fred's story:

He’s big.

He’s rich.

He’s profane.

Not funny profane. Just profane. About his daughter’s bathroom in a house he is building: “Low windows there so no one can peek at her titties.”

And he runs his 20 million case operation out of a trailer in the Central Valley.

I agree with Karen MacNeil who is quoted in the article, “There’s a phrase in wine education- there are Wednesday-night wines and then there are Sunday-night wines. They make Sunday-night wines in the Napa Valley, but every vintner in this valley would argue that we all need Wednesday-night wines. Franzia should just leave it at that-say, ‘I make Wednesday-night wines. I’m not going to be making the Armani suit, I’m going to be the clothes purveyor to Target.” Instead he suggest that there’s somehow no valid premise for expensive wines.”

I’ve been drinking Wednesday night wine (not Franzia’s!) while reading about first-growth Bordeaux this week. Blech. I gotta tell you, sometimes even on a Wednesday, you need to open up the Sunday-night wine.

Comments

[am]

You have a point, Chris. Every time I'm in Trader Joes I see cases of Two Buck going out the door. Bronco always has ads on www.winejobs.com which tells me that a) his business is booming or more likely b) he's not a very fun guy to work for. I want to like a guy who as you say "has dymystified wine" but his comment about his daughter's "tittles" puts him in the crass category for me.