$1.99 bottle of wine just won the Double Gold Medal wine tasting contest!!! (beers, French)

[Roma]

Charles Shaw wine just won the Double Gold Medal wine tasting contest out of 500 wines in California. It cost $1.99 a bottle!!! The most expensive wine didn't even place! It is nick named "Two-Buck Chuck". You can get Charles Shaw wine at Trader Joe's. Just another reason I miss TJ's.

[BrianH]

Ive been saying stuff like that for a long time. My friend spends about $30 a bottle of wine back home (Ireland) and when I was there i bought a $4 bottle and the $4 was much better. Ive found that in allot of cases.

[mels]

I have always enjoyed two buck Chuck. Can't beat the price!

[Ohiogirl81]

Two Buck Chuck is the best! Wine snobs everywhere are crying in their beers.

[foursonsdad]

I guess people on tight budgets can now enjoy a good tasting wine. I have never heard of Two Buck Chuck but I going to give it a try

Thanks

[MotleyCrew]

Trader Joes has some great wines for under $5.

[BlueWillowPlate]

I have certainly heard of Two Buck Chuck but have never lived in a place that had a TJ's.
I certainly do not think you have to spend tons of money to get yourself a decent wine. But different folks have different tastebuds.

This reminds me of the story of the blind tasting in Paris back in the 70's, in which several California wines did extremely well and ushered in the golden era of California winemaking.
Judgment of Paris
"The wine that one judge said bespoke 'the magnificence of France' turned out to be a Napa Cabernet." Similarly, "'That is definitely a California. It has no nose,' said another judge — after downing a Batard-Montrachet '73." The comments and results of the tasting indicated that the judges could not distinguish California from French wines.

Here is the Two Buck Chuck story.
It came in dead last in a second competition.
As the article says, I don't think wine tasting is an exact science.

[Wanderlust07]

A good reminder that price alone is not a good predictor of the quality of the wine...or, more importantly, whether it will appeal to you, personally. I'm not a big fan of the Shaw wine, esp. the red, but I know people who love it.

Being a "bargain hunter" at heart, I like to try several different wines when I'm at Cost Plus Imports, usually all under $10/bottle. I've had some good ones and some not so good ones, but I can live with buying an occasional cheap bottle of wine that I don't care for if the trade-off is finding some great bargains. I don't have a TJ's near me (darn!) so Cost Plus has to suffice.

Thanks for posting, Roma! I'll have to share the story with those who like the wine. They'll be tickled.

[Sunnydee]

Roma, thanks for the post. I tried this brand of wine at a neighbor's house and enjoyed it. She let me in on the secret, it's only three bucks a bottle at Trader Joe's. (I guess it costs about a dollar to ship it here from California, so we call it three buck Chuck.)

[Hawkeye48]

Yeah, but is it going to stay at two dollars a bottle after winning this award?