The Bronco Wine Company Labels

Bronco Wine Company These are sons and cousins whose father's started Franzia Brothers winery. Franzia was sold to Coca Cola but now the name is owned by The Wine Group which sells the wine in a plastic pouch surrounded by a cardboard box.

Bronco is #4 on the WBN 2006 “Largest Wineries List.” After Franzia Brothers was sold to Coca Cola, the Franzia Brothers began withdrawing from day to day operations. The sons and cousins decided they still wanted to be in the business so they started their own company and they grew and grew. Fred Franzia is the marketing whiz of the partners. He saw opportunity in Napa Valley particularly when he could buy an existing label and put wine in the bottle, even if it wasn’t from grapes of Napa Valley! Staring in the mid 1980’s, he ended up  buying six Napa Valley labels from large corporate wineries , small bankrupt wine producers and even the wife of a winery who won the rights to the label in a divorce case settlement. Little did anybody realize what this divorcee’s label - Charles Shaw - would do to the American, and in particular, the Napa Valley wine world.

The marketing genius of Fred Franzia burst into the forefront of the American wine consumer. All he did was fill the bottle with inexpensive but good tasting wine negotiate an exclusive outlet for the wines, “Trader Joe’s” and they sold it in California for a mere $1.99 per bottle. That’s not a misprint: $1.99 a bottle! It quickly got the nickname “Two-Buck Chuck,” and a phenomenon was born!!

Franzia also purchased the former Quail Ridge, Domaine Napa and Rutherford Vintners labels. He didn’t immediately produce a wine under these labels but he owned them and plans were underway. Finally, Franzia purchased two other labels: Napa Creek and Napa Ridge. He was selling 100’s of thousands of cases of “Two-Buck Chuck” and all knew that he would be introducing wines under the Napa Creek and Napa Ridge labels, yet not a drop of Napa Valley juice would be in these wines.

Napa wine producers were in an uproar. How could anybody do such a dastardly thing to the premium name of Napa Valley wines? Something had to be done to stop Fred Franzia. The fight was on and Bronco Wine Company put on a great battle but the courts finally said no - if it doesn’t contain Napa Valley grape juice, Bronco could not use the label. It was not a short battle: indeed, it took years of courtroom brawling before the Sate Supreme Court finally confirmed lower court rulings.

But Fred Franzia did not fade away. He came out with a new label under which he offered Napa Valley wine. He called the wine “Napa River.” Now, if you know anything about our lovely little stream, you know that it isn’t the most pristine of waters. In fact there is evidence of significant pollution in this creek called a river. Did Fred intend to send a message to his foes? Hmmmmmm!