Two Buck Chuck- judged California's Best Chardonnay!

Lot of wine connasooers here... whadda ya think?

http://www.napavalleyregister.com/artic ... 254801.txt

Read it and weep!

Mike

Or is that "corner sewers?"

I tried TBC once. Yuck.

I think the key to the article is that it differentiates between the wine judges and wine critics. Their wine judges got lumped in with "people," so clearly they were going for mass appeal, not subtle nuance.

And Two-Buck Chuck is nothing if it's not inconsistent. I've heard of people buying a single bottle, taking it to the parking lot and sampling it, and then going back and buying a case when it turns out to be good. So maybe 2005 was just particularly tasty. I'm willing to risk a couple of bucks to see whether or not I think it's a crowd pleaser.

I don't like all of their wines, but amazingly, the chardonnay isn't awful. I'd cook with it. The one I tasted wasn't at all oaky or buttery.

It's not terrible, although my uses of it have been solely limited as the main ingredient in a white sangria.

More to the inconsistent point - my in-laws who winter in south Florida think 2BC is the best thing since sliced bread. Accordingly I've tried 2BC a couple times during annual visits. The first - in 2005- was a merlot which was not at all bad. The second - in 2006 - was a cab that was awful. My father-in-law happened to have a wine magazine in the condo with an article about 2BC and the article explains that the 2BC buyers source fruit and juice from hither and yon and sometimes they get some decent stuff. If you're fortunate enough to select something from that bottling lot, it can be the best $2 you've spent But woe to those who don't taste before they buy

Obviously something went wrong here. Wine competitions are usually jokes, though--frequently it's hard to find a really serious winemaker there. And everyone gets awards. And then they screw with the awards (e.g., double gold) so you don't even know what the scale is.

I wouldn't put much stock in this.

Although, in Chucky Shaw's defense, I do like their sav. blanc quite a bit. It's worth it's price...

cjk

Guys.....it's $2 wine......ya gets whats ya pay fer.....

Just a bit of a personal note here. I went to college ( = Santa Clara) with Freddie Franzia. Junior year our dorm rooms shared a wall, so I used to know FF pretty well. He loves nothing better than to poke his finger in the eye of the pretentious--and, in the end, that is what 2BC is ALL about. Also, don't forget that FF owns more acres of vineyard than anyone else in CA. Sure, most of it's in the central valley, but there are some fine grapes grown out there, when they're grown right. And expect FF to do it right.

Buy the bottle, sample it in the parking lot as suggested, and buy a box if you like. Help Freddie poke a finger.

Geo

LuvstoEat wrote:Guys.....it's $2 wine......ya gets whats ya pay fer.....

it's not $2 anymore anywhere, and it was always $3 here..

i think the quality has gone down a LOT since it was first "big" 2 or 3 years ago. i used to not mind drinking it with hamburgers and what not at night... now i try the chardonnay and i feel like i'm drinking butter and vanilla. it's undrinkable to me almost...

speaking of going down the tubes, in this month's Southwest Air magazine there was an article about yellow tail wine. I used to think that was drinkable too then about 2 years ago I started to really think it was disgusting--far more disgusting than 2bc has ever been... i cringe when i see people bring it to parties. The article pretty much explained it... the guy running the winery thinks American's have no taste for wine (he actually said that) and therefore prefer a more fruit forward wine. so a few years back they basically threw everything the knew about winemaking out and made a more fruity wine more for the masses, and now it sells 10000% more than it did prior. ick.

dddane wrote:The article pretty much explained it... the guy running the winery thinks American's have no taste for wine (he actually said that) and therefore prefer a more fruit forward wine.

While a harsh generalization, it seems more common in certain parts to find Americans who actually prefer Yellowtail-type wine than other, better rated types. My parents are part of the "White Zinfandel Generation," and what they like is that the wine is bland. Someone else I know who is a member of this "generation" describes such taste as "smooth," when, in essence, smooth means watery and tasteless.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3372578

"After its big win, ABC News decided to put the cheap stuff to a blind taste test and see if it would repeat the victory. It was disguised and served along with chardonnays of various prices, including a $120 bottle.

In this test, Caroline Styne, co-owner and wine director of two trendy Los Angeles area restaurants, judged the wines -- but to a different outcome. She ranked "Chuck" dead last, but second-to-last was the $120 variety.

No one said this was an exact science. Just ask the chief judge of the competition that gave the gold to a wine that costs less than a latte."

Also notice that nowhere did we see a list of the other wines that were in the competition. That's probably telling...

in the original link above, down in the reply section someone claims to have been on the panel and says that the TBC at the competition was nothing like the TBC in the stores. he also says thats the way it goes,
wine makers can select the best of the crop for use in competition.

they also bottle 80 million bottles a year. i don't care how consistant you are. no one is going to get the same taste with that many possibilties.

All those who have it in for wine snobs, God bless you, you have your validation.

All those who have it in for TBC, we know this will not change our opinions. Me, I used to always buy the cheapest version of things I could find. It often worked, but at times it was a disaster. This applied to TBC.

At some point, I lost patience with this, or at least lost my tolerance for the disasters. TBC is a blended wine made from a honking massive range of grapes from all over the place. The winemakers have a flavor profile they aim for when they do the final blending for bottling. This flavor profile may include a sensory evaluation, or it may just be done through chemical analysis - most likely there is some combination. Some of the above I know, and some I have surmised. Feel free to correct me if you know better.

What I do know is that within that flavor profile you can end up with wines that are inoffensive, okay, or awful. Actually, there are a lot more gradations and numerous types of awful, but that is the general sense. I also know that most TBC buyers are not buying that wine because they love its taste - it is because they love its price. That does not mean it is bad, or that it is not better than many wines that cost a lot more. It only means it does not have to be good, though it also must not be so bad as to be undrinkable. So long as it falls within that range it will sell on its price, and perhaps on its anti-snob appeal.

Tell me again why I should buy a wine whose entire business case is built on the concept that it does not have to be good to succeed? There are a whole lot of places I could get food that operate on a similar model, and I avoid them, too. Can anyone say Mickey D?

Call me a snob. go ahead.

PS. I do not let the California State Fair judges or Robert Parker tell me what I should like. The whole ratings game just bugs me.