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Two Buck Chuck? Charles Shaw - a label owned by Bronco, which is headed by one of the Franzia brothers. When first introduced almost 20 years ago at Trader Joe's it sold for $2 a bottle. Hence the name. Pretty mediocre plonk, but popular. I grew up in and around the wine industry in California and have seen it grow from its generally sleepy post-Prohibition roots in the '50s through its various stages of growth and popular expansion and a new generation discovers some new sort or style of wine every decade or so. I've been drinking (or at least tasting under the supervision of winemaker/oenologist relatives) fine wines from California and Europe since I was around 10. I've tasted semi-professionally since the '60s. I'm of two minds: on one hand, the expansion of the industry has made many things available and encouraged much useful innovation, but on the other hand, the increased popularity of wine as status symbol has priced the very best wines out of reach for all but the very rich, or those in the trade who get to taste and even drink, top wines as part of their work. I certainly was able to drink more prestigious wines in the '50s, '60s, and even '70s than I am today - and I'm thinking only of relative pricing, not about the effects of inflation. The article is interesting. Many more producers have some sort of pretension to making 'fine wine' than was once the case. Still, I think it probably remains true that 90% of wine sold is meant to be, and usually is, consumed within a year or so of release. (People used to say within a year of being made, but there is a lag of up to a year (for whites) or two (for reds) between harvest and and you finding a bottle in your local market or wine shop). This is the sort of wine that used to be called 'ordinary' (vin ordinaire)or everyday wine. The overall quality of everyday wine has undoubtedly vastly improved over the past 75 years. Starting with the much (and justly) reviled Gallos and their 1970s creation of "Hearty Burgundy" (which sold for around a dollar a bottle in the late '70s) the quality of inexpensive table wine from California and later Australia and New Zealand, as well as from traditional wine-growing regions in France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Austria has been improved by scientific winemaking and by improvements in viticulture (grape-growing), introducing far more grape varieties to the average drinker who knew them only generically. This is not really the case for the best 'fine' wines - the quality of a top 1928 or 1929 Bordeaux is hardly less (if ant all) than that of a 1945, 1959, 1966, 1982 or .... Bordeaux. Similarly in California: though there were far fewer Cabernets made in the 40s, 50s, 60s, or even 70s than today, the best of the 1941, 1968, 1970 and other outstanding vintages are still drinking well today (though fully mature) and are as good as anything made in the past 10 years. I could go on for hours on the topic of wine, but I'll stop here by observing that as a result of the changes, most of the wine you can buy today, with a little care in selection, is what used to be called 'sound commercial wine' - that is the grapes were ripe (often a problem in France, not so much here), of reasonable quality varietals, reasonably well made and assembled, without significant flaws, and a taste within the range of what is expected for the grapes used.

Yeah, plonk. Y’see, making our peace with plonk is precisely what I’m advocating.

Let’s face it: we can all remember that heavenly bottle of 1970 La Mission Haut Brion, but who can afford to drink like that every day? For years my every day dinnertime drink was Gallo cabernet sauvignon. At $4.99 for 1.5L, I didn’t expect much, and didn’t get much. But I got my money’s worth: an honest varietal that was good enough for every day meals at home when no company was coming. “Good enough” is the market space nobody wants, but it’s the space that needs to be served if wine’s to be incorporated in the affordable family diet as it is in France and Italy.

I’ve been to Napa several times, and tasted my way up and down and all over, but that is a tiny niche: bottles for the seriously rich, the restaurant trade, and special occasions, much of it coming from vanity winemakers, hobbyists sitting on massive Hollywood or Silicon Valley fortunes. They are not in business to meet my needs. Even $10 bottles are unaffordable for every day family drinking in most households. Nowadays I drink box wine, without apologies. If I could afford it, I’d upgrade to an Aussie screw-cap brand. I’m not out to prove anything, and marketing aimed at the ignorant and prestige-hungry doesn’t work on me.

When I was a student in Italy many years ago, we bought wine in bulk — so cheap that you could (and we did) throw it around the room at toga parties. It was literally cheaper than bottled water. It wasn’t prize-winning stuff, but still managed to enhance many a meal. Government fiscal greed and anti-alcohol prudery make “throwing wine” impossible in America, but widespread access to decent plonk would be a service to mankind.