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    FrankAboutFood.com 9 Wall Street Journal 1

    FrankAboutFood.com 10 Wine Spectator O

 

   Super Wine "Negotiant" Cameron Hughes

Slightly Blurred !!! But Very Serious

 

Those scores above should put me in some " Playoffs” ........somewhere,,,, With typical immodesty, I do see my self playing against the above vaunted journalistic powers except in the area of compensation. They each get about $100 a year from you for their supposedly sophisticated wine info (usually late) , rarely in your real interest........ while my services are free to you much earlier on wines that you can also  actually find and afford.  Please tell   your wine imbibing friends all about FrankAboutFood. com. Subscription is freeeeee!!!!.

You see:  The big story about the above negotiant Cameron Hughes  appeared in a full page article as a revelation in the Wall Street Journal.......... last week.

I wrote about Cameron 9 months ago. Score 9-1

The Wine Spectator excitedly announced wine prices are dropping …. after the important end-of-season buying period of 2009

I reported it 10 months earlier. Score !0- 0.

In case you missed my first Cameron Hughes story, here is a short reprise.

Cameron Hughes is known as a “negotiant” in the domestic wine Industry. The term is from the Burgundy area of France where the negotiant is the driving force as opposed to the unified Chateau style production and marketing of Bordeaux.

The negotiants of Burgundy rarely own vineyards or grow  grapes. They buy the grapes via long term contracts from small growers from Dijon in the north to the gastronomic area south near Lyon. They have little control over the actual agricultural responsibilities.

Thus they do  take delivery of the grapes and then  usually crush, age, and bottle.

Then they label and market  So,  most of the names that you may see on the wines of Burgundy such as George Duboeuf , Bouchard et Fils, Mommessin etc are not the growers. They are the bottlers, financiers and marketers who do have long term contracts with the farmers.

Cameron Hughes is a similar financier and marketer. However he probably does not crush nor age the wine And  by intent he has no long term contracts. Instead of some level of continuity, he offers astounding values and savings of up to 75%. He does this  by locating excellent grapes that are very  often already  crushed, aged and often  bottled wines.

They can be very fine wines that are  languishing in distress..... in the vintners warehouse. 

Cameron and his lead taster, (previously a winemaker) Sam Spencer seem to have that elusive palate that finds these wines that are fair retails at $50 or more. They may offer as little as $5 cash per bottle,  put the Cameron Hughes label on it and sell it to the big names throughout the country such as Sam’s Club and Costco. who retail it for $12.95 or less.

Many vintners call Cameron a scavenger who bottom feeds. They are often bitter but will eagerly take his money when they need it. to survive

Cameron operates in the same sophisticated manner as today's popular and aggressive fashion marketers have done for ages such as TJ  Max,  Ross, Steinmart  and Kohl's who live on the mistakes of others. They deliver quality, style and true value to satisfy most consumers at prices that are within one's budget.

At a much, much  lower level, that is what Fred Franzia of Bronco Wines also does via an exclusive deal with Trader Joe for “Two Buck Chuck. In 8 years He has sold 600,000,000 bottles at $2 retail. Read Fred’s bio still showing at the end of this article.

Hughes is obviously much more discriminating and only sells about 1,000,000 bottles a year.

He has been particularly adept at locating the upscale Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Cabs and some Chardonnay. You can check out direct online offerings at www.chwine.com (don’t click this) or visit Costco or Sams. Both offer multiple selections at around $10. .

Next!!! Two More  FrankAboutFood.com Tips.....

A recent article in The Food Section of The Los Angeles Times reported that those  two supposedly upscale Supermarkets, Gelson's and Bristol Farms  among others have been offering suspect Extra Virgin Olive Oils and Aged Balsamic Vinegars from suspect importers who consciously bottle lower grades with false labels and charge high prices. Gelson's and Bristol Farms buyers must have been smoking too many cigars and have lost their palate.

Thus if in fact you are a serious buyer of these products, stick with the very competent upscale and very reputable food and wine buyers from Trader Joes and Costco. They are the best in the world and consistently offer high quality imported foods at the most competitive prices.

The below space ship like gadget is the hot new overwrought aerator being offered in gourmet magazines . It’s about $70 with some serious shortcomings.

Probably ½ of you already have that aerator that your kids gave you for Christmas. I received one a year ago and I am now convinced that it really works. But I did find it a bit of a nuisance when serving a large group as each person has to try to hold the glass, hold the aerator and pour the wine. I think that takes three hands.

But all you really need for the complete job is just a simple wine flask. You can pick one up for about $10 at Cost Plus or Bed n’ Bath and this will actually work better than the below overkill gadget

 

Merely position the flask on a flat surface, place the aerator over the flask and slowly and carefully pour all the wine into it. Then pass the flask around to fill the glasses with well aerated wine. It will do a better aerating job than the above and avoid lifting the bottle up and down if a vacuum develops in the bottle and its stops pouring. You also avoid removing the built in aerator mechanism to pour the wine into individual glasses. $10 for a flask if you don't have one or $70 for another overrated gadget nuisance

You then place the flask and the empty wine bottle on the table so that your guests can see what they are drinking. Oh Boy

Even if you don’t already have an aerator and have to buy one, our overall solution is a better choice for the money.

 

 

               Continuing Chaos as the Euro Sinks

Finally, as we have been making it clear for the last year, the foreseeable future is brighter every day  for any discerning and energetic wine lover.

The Euro is at a 6 year low against the dollar, down more than 20% although it did go up 1.5% recently. That combined with all the competition from the Southern Hemisphere has created tremendous downward pressure on prices in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and perhaps even more in The United States where the vintners of Napa like the French thought they were above it all. They weren't 

Now the vintners of Santa Ynez, Paso Robles, Monterey, Sonoma and Napa. particularly are sitting with warehouses full of unsold, and often even unbottled or unlabeled wines. Washington and Oregon are affected slightly less because the have been more realistic in pricing because of much lower real estate costs. Columbia Crest and Chateau St. Michelle are examples that continue to offer value across the board

But now large amounts mid priced California wine is  going into the hands of the  those negotiants (see above)  who have the money and  banks that support their smart purchases with the cash for the endangered species . Many of these wines recently offered at $50 or more will now retail at $11.99 … or less.

The recent years of craziness and cult wines may finally be coming to an end as the the majority of wine drinkers now are beginning to understand that just paying 100 bucks for a bottle of wine does not make you one of the elite drinkers. Finding a wine that tastes like a hundred but paying $25 or less is the real ecstasy.  Yeah!!!

Particularly avoid most big label French wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy and especially the Champagne district where those vintners with tacit approval from the French government violate all basic trade restriction laws by meeting secretly to jointly maintain prices and restrict production

They do this with the belief, perhaps justified, that upscale Wall Street U.S. wine buyers are either stupid or just don't care since they are buying those wines with your bailout money or are politicians from the city of Bell.

If you must serve French wine look to the Provence- Avignon-Cotes du Rhone area where tremendous values are now being offered. 

 

Two Buck Chuck

A Great New HBO Series??

Think “The Wine Sopranos”  

If you think “Sideways” was a story about wine worth telling and a film worth making, wait until you hear about this one. 

It may be impossible to believe. But the Charles Shaw Label or  “Two Buck Chuck” has been on the market at Trader Joes for eight and 600,000,000 ( not a misprint) bottles have been sold at $1.99 in California and $2.99 in the other 49 states. And it has all been done by a third generation XXXL ":wise guy". with that  classic Northern Italian  wine Heritage.

He essentially operates his privately owned  Bronco Wines as a one man grape growing, grape crushing..... and deal making biz (whatever it takes) with a little help from  "the boys" of  La Famiglia,  brother Joey Franzia and cousin Johnny. Franzia. 

His name is Fred Franzia (Think Tony Soprano and family) and  he does have very, very serious chops that go back to Italy 116 years ago. His grandfather Guiseppe Franzia  had then emigrated from Genoa  in 1893 and quickly  went to work in  the  grape fields  around Modesto. He soon had his own farm. His future wife, Teresa whom he had never met before, was  sent to  him from Genoa. From this arranged marriage  they conceived and raised 5 sons and 2 daughters.

When prohibition ended, hardworking, entrepreneurial and now Grandma Teresa saw an opportunity. She announced to her 5 sons, while Grandpa was still visiting and fooling around somewhere back in Italy, that the family  would  go into the winemaking business. During Prohibition she grew grapes on the road  from Modesto to Yosemite and sold them to Italian home winemakers in the New York -Hoboken area. Somehow she was able to borrow $5,000 from her Genoese "Paisan", Amadeo  Gianinni, founder of the The Bank of Italy (soon after to merge with the Bank of America) and she and her boys started..... Franzia Brothers.

 Freddy and Joey were born during this time to one of Theresa's sons, Guiseppe # 2  But the hardworking tough Grandma was the one to became Freddy’s  true role model.  During all those years she worked the bottling line 9 hours daily and still cooked dinner every night featuring   home made pasta..... with  that marvelous  Genoese Pesto sauce........ for the entire family .

While all of this was going on, Ernest Gallo married one of the grandma's two daughters. She then loaned her son-in-law the $5,000 needed to go into his own wine business. You know what happened to Ernie and his brother Julio.  Gallo and Sons now do well over a Billion a year. But little  nephew Freddy quietly now does about $500 million with his unique multi faceted approach.  He crushes 350,000 tons. Only Gallo, the largest vintner in the world  crushes more.

Freddy had graduated from Santa Clara University and went to work as a salesman for the already very successful Franzia Brothers. They made lots of cheap sweet wines that then appealed to the average street guy. It was port, sherry and muscatel, plentifully  produced in that very fertile and sunny San Joaquin Valley. But his father and uncles then cashed out to an investment group that took it public and it later was sold to Coca Cola. who eventually sold it to another large wine company. Franzia Wine Is now known  primarily for its "Wine in a Box"  

Freddy was furious with his father, Guiseppe #2, for selling out. He  quit and started Bronco Wines with his “Goombas”, brother Joey and cousin Johnny in that same San Joaquin Valley area. Where they got the money is unclear. Maybe rather now  rich Grandma Teresa was still alive and gifted her three grandsons. From the start Freddy was "Il Capo" the  unchallenged boss.

In the same time period, Robert Mondavi was establishing Napa as a premium wine area with that low yielding tough gravelly soil and the climate that is needed to produces the premium  wines. They would compete with the Bordeaux Cabs and Burgundy Chardonnays of France. This soil  and heavy pruning however, produces only 4 tons per acre while Freddie’s more fertile San Joaquin acreage could produce 12 tons and the price of each acre was about 1/10th the price of Napa real estate.... or less. It has been rumored that Francis Ford Coppola paid $300, 000 plus per acre for some choice (?)  Napa land.

Freddy didn't go to Stanford   for an MBA as all the Gallo kids did. But he quickly understood the economics of this new game of which he now made himself a part. (he understood costs and  what his edge could be). The  Napa Cabernet and Sonoma Chardonnay wine explosion  then began. He was a risk taker not adverse to cutting serious corners while challenging that entrenched upscale Napa hierarchy. ....... .... and the legal system.

Thus  he started buying up labels such as Napa Ridge, Napa Creek ,Domaine Napa etc.,  planning to put them with his Modesto grown wines or distress wines bought by the tanker-load..

You see, because of a  grandfather loophole, he was able to put  the Napa Ridge label  on those low cost grapes for supermarkets to sell at  about $5 retail since that name had been in play before 1986.  He also bought The Charles Shaw label around then. It was a very respected Napa name that had gone bankrupt because of high living by the owners followed by a messy divorce.  But he shelved that name... until 2002 because the stars had not yet lined up.

In the  early 2000s, in another  rather clever and  timely act,  the  Bronco bottling facility broke ground ..........  in the town of Napa....... with a  capacity of triple that area's total production,  Reality then  finally  sank in to those dozing  vintners. The  Napa Valley Vintners Association prevailed on Governor Davis to sign legislation that closed that 1986 Napa loophole. Franzia sued as unconstitutional but eventually lost the right to use the Napa Ridge name in 2006.

So What!!! In the interim, those stars lined up for Bronco. Over-zealous. optimistic and overpriced production within California by a bunch of  those arrogant dozing  dilettantes of wine created unwieldy domestic varietal  wine surpluses. They also faced inroads from Australia, New Zealand and others from the Southern Hemisphere. Those foreign  interlopers had  lower real estate costs. lower production costs.......and little debt,  Does that sound familiar?

Freddy was waiting.. He is a very, very ruthless buyer. He paid as low as $1 or $2  a GALLON for casually drinkable varietals such as Cab, Merlot and Chardonnay. He already had the hi-tech skills and equipment in place to anticipate and reject any of the real  trash. You can produce Five 750 ml bottles from one gallon.....Five  ...............Do the math.       Freddy surely did.

So with all those  brilliant moves,  he combined penny prices with that esteemed Charles Shaw Napa aura and almost zero distribution costs. You see, he  sold directly to the nearby  and very high volume Trader Joe’s.  Thus, no agents fees, low transportation costs and 2 day delivery for fast turnover. Trader Joe’s loved that magical $1.99 price point  They had the wine sold before they even received an invoice. Everybody loved Bronco and Freddie....... except Napa wineries.

You see that new bottling plant now allowed him to legally state...... on that Charles Shaw label that the wine was... bottled and cellared in …Napa. He then  put  that label on whatever semi-decent Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc  and even Pinot Noir that  measured up. Already crushed wine  was then tanked in bulk to Napa from  surplus sources all over the state or from his own vines,. some of which now actually have Pinot Noir grapes grafted on to them in The San Joaquin Valley. All these wines were often cynically described as "Freeway Aged" by  those enraged Napsters .Skeptical pro wine tasters stated they  had to deal with a "A moving target".. Get it? But Trader Joe wine consumers were always seen smiling..

The economy has soured and the surpluses have mounted. Now many of those Napa Valley vintners who sneered at Freddy, come to him to sell him Napa grown varietal grapes in order for them to pay  harvesting fees. That giant  bottling plant  is 30 minutes from their vines. A 99 Cents Spence  from Napa soon? Freddy doesn't doze!!!.

Oh Yeah!  I forgot. In 1994 Freddy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by falsely labeling grapes. He personally paid a fine of $500 thousand and Bronco paid $2.5 million. The Grand Jury indictment said that in the late 80s and early 90s he misrepresented more than one million gallons of wine worth 5 million dollars in the bulk market by offering a lesser Modesto grape as the varietal Zinfandel. He instructed Zinfandel leaves to be scattered over his local vines  in an act he called “Blessing The Load”. 

The judge ordered him to step down from the Board of Directors and as CEO for 5 years.  His brother  Joey  became CEO and President.... on the stationery. Freddy accepted  the job of  chief financial officer. But he  still sat in the big office. Today he is Chairman and CEO again. Brother Joey (see Woody Allen below)  and cousin Johnny are now co-presidents???. Freddy applied to “Dubya” for a pardon. He was rejected.

Bronco Wines is now the largest grower of grapes in the U.S. with 40,000 acres in production beneath 250 million vines!!! But he not only produces for himself, he still sells to other wineries and also buys large distress lots of wines from troubled competitors or growers. Gallo out-sources most of their grapes from contract  growers and then crushes. 

Of course Fredrick Franzia still retains that Italian Joe Pesci street heritage with that traditional  ego.... and the  eternal Casanova eye for the ladies.. So there are rumors that he is seeking to self finance his story and offer it to HBO as a series.  He certainly may  think James Gondolfini is right for the lead with Scarlett Johannson (Sorry Edie) as his trusted in-house accounting manager.  Scarlett likes to appear in Woody Allen productions so, as noted,  he could  play Freddy’s "schlemiel"   brother.. and direct. Freddy now has a very  attractive and worldly  young lady running his very active computerized accounting system.  He says he really needs her.

                          The End ......seriously

P.S Check info on his new Blue Fin Label at $4.