Two Buck Chuck

What are your thoughts on "two-buck Chuck?"

For those of you who aren't familiar with "Two Buck Chuck", it is a wine sold in California for two dollars and throughout the rest of the country at a slightly higher price by a popular chain of stores. We at Wine of the Month Club feel that it isn't a very good wine. After looking at the numbers and definitely after tasting it, we think you will agree.

As with anything that is sold, there are certain costs that need to be paid. Wine has some costs such as the packaging and brokers fees and such. If we start with a case of wine and work backwards, we can pretty much see how this wine gets to you at such a low price.

First of all, the case of wine is sold for $24.00. Out of that you need to deduct packaging materials and related costs of $12.00, store's markup of $4.80, and brokers fee of $3.00 This leaves approximately $4.20 to buy the wine. Normally grapes from the Napa Valley can cost anywhere from $9 to $15 dollars per gallon. As you can see, this doesn't quite fit into the budget of $4.20 that is left to buy the 2.2 gallons needed for a case of wine. Therefore, you have to buy wine from other regions of California (like Fresno?) that are less expensive and that sell for $2 to $5 dollars per gallon. Essentially, lesser quality grapes at a reduced price.

Inferior materials make for an inferior product. Remember, you can make good wine from good grapes, but you can't do the same with inferior grapes. At wine of the Month Club, you will always get quality wines at great prices.