Profile in Courage: Fred Franzia

After a long, hard day at the office (or on Zoom), it’s nice to sit down and pour a glass of well-deserved wine. That feeling is even better with wine that can be purchased at vending machine prices. The low cost “Two Buck Chuck”  wines changed the world and led to a consumer revolution in affordable wine. And, along every step of the day, Two-Buck Chuck pioneer Fred Franzia had to put up with meddlesome regulators and cynics who tried to stomp the brand and thought that wine was for the wealthy. Franzia has sadly passed away, but his legacy of creating an affordable, beloved product lives on. For giving consumers a respite from the rough and tumble while keeping government on its toes, Fred Franzia is a Profile in Courage.

Fred and his family certainly aren’t new to the winemaking business. The Franzia clan has been growing vines and bottling wines for nearly 100 years, with business taking off at the end of prohibition in 1933. Interestingly, though, Fred’s brother and uncle sold the original family business to Coca Cola, and now, any “Franzia” branding is unrelated to Fred’s more contemporary winemaking ventures. Fred wasn’t happy about the deal with Coca Cola, and he and a few family members started their own operations shortly after. Formed in 1974, Bronco rose to prominence by buying and selling bulk wine and chasing after brands for distribution.

As noted by Wall Street Journal contributor Julia Flynn, “Franzia’s first big hit as a distributor was the Glen Ellen brand, produced by Benziger Family Winery, which was sold by California supermarkets for less than $5 a bottle. By the late 1980s, Glen Ellen dominated its category.” Fred’s early successes in bringing cheap wine to the public, however, were disrupted by a string of setbacks. Bronco lost out on distribution contracts with Glen Ellen and Robert Mondavi Corp., and then became the target of a federal investigation into wine misbranding. A 1993 indictment charged that Franzia was passing off crushed non-zinfandel grapes as zinfandel grapes so that Bronco could charge more for their wines. This was a curious charge, given that Bronco was making its name by selling inexpensive wines (mostly at $5 a pop) in contrast to the snootier competition. Franzia maintained that the investigation was instigated by jealous rivals and pled guilty to protect coworkers who were also being targeted by the feds.

Fortunately, this legal snafu did not prevent the wine entrepreneur from bringing cheap brands to thirsty consumers. In 1995, Franzia snapped up the Charles Shaw wine brand at the bottom barrel price of $25,000 and used the brand (along with his trademark bulk buying of cheap wine) to bring $2 wine to the masses. A distribution partnership with Trader Joe’s brought Two-Buck Chuck across the country, and Franzia was all too delighted to stick it to his higher-priced competitors. In a 2009 interview with The New Yorker, Franzia balked at the pretensions of his industry rivals: “You tell me why someone’s bottle is worth eighty dollars and mine’s worth two dollars. Do you get forty times the pleasure from it?”

Franzia’s vitriol might’ve been less sharp if competing brands were merely using marketing and promos to wrestle away his consumers. Instead, his competitors lobbied to pass a California law (in 2000) that required wines labeled with the word “Napa” to have at least 75 percent of their fruit originate from the Napa Valley. That way, wealthier Napa growers could make competing brands look less savory even if rivals had products that contained Napa grapes and were bottled in the region. Franzia tried to fight this arbitrary law in court but lost. Fortunately, he discovered that some of his brands were grandfathered into an exemption from the law and was still able to market his wines as he saw fit.

Even after his repeated regulatory tussles, Franzia never strayed from his quest to provide the public with wine that wouldn’t break the bank. And for creating a consumer revolution even when the going got rough, Fred Franzia is a Profile in Courage.