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Robert A. Mills

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Blogs by Robert A. Mills

LIPS THAT TOUCH WINE . . .
8/24/2009 5:46:58 AM

OLD VAUDEVILLE GAG: Lips that touch wine will never touch mine! . . . Your lips? . . . No, fool! My wine!
(Prolonged rim shot)

Unable to doze off, I flicked on the TV and caught ABC’s NIGHTLINE, a program I had not seen since the days of Ted Koppel. They were just starting a segment on “Two Buck Chuck,” and this immediately positioned me upright in bed.

Charles Shaw wine—better known as “Two Buck Chuck”—is the finest table wine available anywhere! At my neighborhood Trader Joe’s grocery store it sells for $2.99 a bottle, or $35.82 a case, taxes etc. included. Here in Georgia, due to delivery and taxes, it’s actually “Three Buck Chuck.”

Is it truly the best wine in the world? Unless you are a wine snob who cannot consider himself an aficionado unless upwards of $10 a bottle is spent on wine (you know who you are,) the answer is an unqualified YES!

At my daughter’s wedding, we served Charles Shaw wines to the applause of all in attendance. Before and since, we offer no other fermented juice within my four walls. In restaurants, where I am forced to spend a minimum of $7.06 for a decent glass of Merlot, I cannot escape the fact that it costs me $2.02 per ounce, whereas I could have bought a whole bottle of “Chuck” for less than 12¢ an ounce!

How good is it, you ask? According to wine master Fred Franzia whose Bronco Winery in Napa Valley, California bought the brand in 1990, his Charles Shaw’s “2002 Shiraz received the double gold medal, besting roughly 2,300 other wines in competition.” His “2005 California chardonnay was judged Best Chardonnay from California at the Commercial Wine Competition of the 2007 California Exposition and State Fair. The chardonnay received 98 points, a double gold, with accolades of ‘Best of California’ and ‘Best of Class’.”

Charles Shaw’s Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandels, etc., have done equally as well and are much loved by budget-minded connoisseurs who believe Mr. Franzia when he says the proof of a wine’s taste and quality is in the grapes—he contends his are grown in a region of California superior to most areas where other wineries thrive.

He says the manufacturing process also has a lot to do with it. Aging for eons in wooden casks might “be necessary in Europe and other places,” but it’s “a waste of time for us.” Asked how long his wines are allowed to age (in modern aluminum silos,) he replied, with a twinkle, “Twenty-four hours. Or less, I hope.”

The Charles Shaw label recently introduced an “Australian Chardonnay” that reportedly has taken the wine-drinking population by storm. Selling in Roswell, GA at Trader Joe’s for the still-unheard-of price of $2.99 a bottle, this new kid on the vine has already garnered a critical write-up in the New York Times. Although I have not read the review, my research indicates only one wino interviewed placed it at #2

Everyone else (perhaps they were at my daughter’s wedding) rated it Numero Uno.

By the way, whatever happened to Ted Koppel?

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