Charles Shaw is a brand of "extreme value" wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 (bargain-priced premium wine). Largely made from California

California wine

California wine has a long and continuing history, and in the late twentieth century became recognized as producing some of the world's finest wine. While wine is made in all fifty U.S. states, up to 90% of American wine is produced in the state...

 grapes, Charles Shaw wines currently include Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Canada's Okanagan Valley to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley...

, White Zinfandel

White Zinfandel

White Zinfandel, often abbreviated as White Zin, is an off-dry to sweet, pink-colored blush wine. White Zinfandel is made from the Zinfandel wine grape, which would otherwise produce a bold and spicy red wine. As such, it is not a grape variety but a method of processing Zinfandel grapes...

, Merlot

Merlot

Merlot is a darkly blue-coloured wine grape, that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name Merlot is thought to derive from the Old French word for young blackbird, merlot, a diminutive of merle, the blackbird , probably from the color of the grape. Merlot-based wines...

, Chardonnay

Chardonnay

Chardonnay is a green-skinned grape variety used to make white wine. It is originated from the Burgundy wine region of eastern France but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand...

, Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon blanc

Sauvignon Blanc is a green-skinned grape variety which originates from the Bordeaux region of France. The grape most likely gets its name from the French word sauvage and blanc due to its early origins as an indigenous grape in South West France., a possible descendant of savagnin...

, Shiraz

Shiraz grape

Syrah or Shiraz is a dark-skinned grape grown throughout the world and used primarily to produce powerful red wines. Whether sold as Syrah or Shiraz, these wines enjoy great popularity.Syrah is used as a varietal and is also blended...

, Valdiguie in the style of Beaujolais nouveau

Beaujolais nouveau

Beaujolais nouveau is a red wine made from Gamay grapes produced in the Beaujolais region of France. It is the most popular vin de primeur, fermented for just a few weeks before being released for sale on the third Thursday of November...

, and limited quantities of Pinot Grigio. These wines were introduced exclusively at Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's is a privately held chain of specialty grocery stores headquartered in Monrovia, California. , Trader Joe's had a total of 365 stores. Approximately half of its stores are in California, with the heaviest concentration in Southern California, but the company also has locations in 30...

 grocery stores in California at a price of $1.99 per bottle, earning the wines the nickname "Two Buck Chuck." In 2009, an international version of Chardonnay

Chardonnay

Chardonnay is a green-skinned grape variety used to make white wine. It is originated from the Burgundy wine region of eastern France but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand...

 from Australia was introduced in limited stores.

Ownership

The Charles Shaw label is owned by the Bronco Wine Company

Bronco Wine Company

The Bronco Wine Company is a vintner that produces wines under many brands and is based in Ceres, California. It is the fourth largest producer of wine in the United States....

, headed by Fred Franzia (formerly of Franzia Brothers

Franzia

Franzia is a brand of wine produced by The Wine Group, known for its box wines sold in 3 and 5-liter cartons. Franzia wines are quite inexpensive, making it well known and popular among college students in the United States. Flavors include White Wine Chardonnay and Red Sangria...

 wines). The Bronco Wine Company produces the Charles Shaw label at their Ceres, California

Ceres, California

Ceres is a city in Stanislaus County, California, United States. The population was 45,417 at the 2010 census, up from 34,609 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Modesto Metropolitan Statistical Area.-General:...

 winery, which is not open to the public.

There once was an actual, eponym

Eponym

An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

ous winery owned by Charles F. Shaw

Charles F. Shaw

Charles F. Shaw is an American businessman and former winery owner whose name is used for Charles Shaw wine, a brand of inexpensive table wines....

, which produced Beaujolais-style wines in the Napa Valley AVA

Napa Valley AVA

Napa Valley AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in Napa County, California, United States. Napa Valley is considered one of the top wine regions in the United States...

. That winery went out of business, and the name was sold to Bronco in 1990.

In the media

• Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure
  Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure
  Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure is a BBC television programme of which two series have been broadcast. It is presented by wine expert Oz Clarke and motoring journalist James May , with Clarke aiming to educate May about wine while undertaking a road trip. The first season focused on France and...
  
  visited the winery in the fourth episode of their second series.
• Chuck
  Chuck (TV series)
  Chuck is an action-comedy/spy-drama television program from the United States created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. The series is about an "average computer-whiz-next-door" named Chuck, played by Zachary Levi, who receives an encoded e-mail from an old college friend now working for the Central...
  
  . In season four episode eleven, Chuck and his team go to a winery in France while on a mission. A wine snob states that Chuck wouldn't know the difference between fine wine and "Two Buck Chuck." Chuck replies that he likes Two Buck Chuck.

Awards

At the 28th Annual International Eastern Wine Competition, Shaw's 2002 Shiraz received the double gold medal, besting the roughly 2,300 other wines in the competition.

Shaw's 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.

Labor-related protest

On May 16, 2008, a 17 year-old undocumented worker named Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez collapsed and later died while pruning vines at a vineyard east of Stockton, CA owned by West Coast Grape Farming, a division of Bronco Wine Company. As a result, an action call went out among bloggers to ask Trader Joe's in their areas to pull Charles Shaw wine until Bronco Wine Companies ensured compliance with state mandated working conditions for all of Bronco Wine’s employees." On June 23, 2008, the United Farm Workers

United Farm Workers

The United Farm Workers of America is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association led by César Chávez...

sent a similar request to its mailing list members. The UFW petition asks Trader Joe's to implement a corporate policy to ensure that their suppliers are not violating the law by failing to provide basic protections".

External links

• Trader Joe's web site on Charles Shaw
• Charles Shaw rumor disclosure by snopes.com
• Video reviews of Charles Shaw via Winelibrary TV
• Two Buck Chuck takes a bite out of Napa article on CNN.com