Fred Franzia, 1943-2022

Two-buck Chuck creator was as innovative as he was controversial

Perhaps the best way to understand Fred Franzia’s place in the history of California wine is to know that the wine that carries his family’s name hasn’t been in his family for almost 50 years.

So yes, Franzia – who died on Tuesday – was contradictory and confusing, and he was even disliked by many. A federal fraud conviction and lawsuits against fellow wine producers will do that.

But Franzia’s role in the U.S. wine business and its growth during the 20^th century wine boom was as important as those of Robert Mondavi and Jess Jackson. If Mondavi helped make California wine more than an oxymoron and Jackson’s Kendall Jackson white made chardonnay the national varietal, then Franzia’s Two-buck Chuck turned wine pricing on its head.

That’s because Two-buck Chuck — $1.99 at first and $3.50 to $4 today — was the first cheap wine that didn’t come in a jug with a screw cap or an awkward box. Instead, it came in a 750ml bottle with a cork-style closure, just like real wine. It also came from a real retailer, and not some dingy store with dusty shelves, poor lighting, and employees who seemed more comfortable selling Thunderbird. Quality, though notoriously inconsistent, was usually a notch above the jug and boxed wines of the era.

And that, apparently, also made the wine business crazy.

Read Franzia’s obituaries in the Winestream Media, and they’re mostly polite and little more. There are few of the accolades — and none of the love – that characterized Mondavi’s obituaries, or even the grudging respect in the Jackson death notices. The Wine Spectator gave him six paragraphs, noted Two-buck Chuck, and said Franzia was known “for his outspoken opinions of the wine industry.”

Which doesn’t seem like much for a man whose leading brand has sold more than 1 billion bottles and whose company, Bronco Wine, is the seventh biggest in the country. But chalk it up it to the Franzia legacy.