HERALD, Calif. — On a wind-swept vineyard south of Sacramento, a small army of laborers armed with razor-sharp knives is fighting the next battle in California's wine wars.
Prunings from last year's cabernet sauvignon crop lie in piles next to Jose Antonio Gonzalez and his crew as they make their way down the long rows of this 3,000-acre vineyard.
Gonzalez pauses, then deftly uses his long knife to strip bark from a section of the woody vine. Sap wells forth like tears. Gonzalez slices deeper into the plant. He angles two pinot noir cuttings into the opening and then secures the graft with white plastic tape. Another worker seals the wound with tar.
"You are seeing the creation of Charles Shaw Pinot Noir," Fred Franzia, chief executive of Bronco Wine Co. and father of the popular "Two-Buck Chuck," tells a visitor as they watch Gonzalez and his crew work.
Once thought a transient artifact of a recent grape glut, Bronco's $2 wine has grown into a permanent fixture in the marketplace, now accounting for about 12% of the domestic wine shipped within California, said consultant Jon Fredrikson of Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates in Woodside, Calif.
Since the first bottle of Charles Shaw sold at a Trader Joe's market a little more than four years ago, Franzia's company has perfected the low-end wine business by whittling expenses in everything from vineyard management to cork purchasing.
In the process, Bronco has become the Wal-Mart of wine -- driving down costs and prices in a way that is shaking up the entire industry.
"Until recently the wine business as a whole has focused on competing on quality and has not focused as much on cost," said Bill Turrentine, president of Turrentine Brokerage, a Novato-based grape and bulk wine broker. "But that's what Franzia has shown the industry. He exacts maximum efficiency out of the entire supply chain to produce inexpensive, quality wine."
For $2.99, consumers can have Bronco's J.W. Morris Chardonnay. A couple bucks more will buy a bottle of the company's Black Mountain Pinot Noir. Last year, Bronco offered a $3.99 Napa Creek Merlot made by a Napa Valley vintner that found itself stuck with too much wine and sold the surplus to Bronco. There's even a sparkler, the $5.99 Almond Creek Vineyards almond-flavored bubbly.
"I think this level of wine fills a real niche in the market," Cory Merchant said as he shopped the wine aisle at a Trader Joe's in Long Beach.
