Mr. 'Two Buck Chuck' strikes again

CERES, Calif. -- First came ''Two Buck Chuck," the $1.99 bestseller that gave wine drinkers a thrifty thrill. Now, vintner Fred Franzia is campaigning to get restaurants to sell his Salmon Creek wine at around $10 a bottle.

Restaurants haven't been in a rush to take the plunge, although the wine's low price still leaves room for a markup of about three times wholesale.

Franzia has been fighting trends for years as a maverick in the California wine world. Franzia's office at the Bronco Wine Co. he cofounded in central California is a brown-paneled trailer. Franzia prefers to put his money in his thousands of acres of vineyards and the huge, modern plant where brands such as Forest Glen and Napa Ridge are produced as well as the popular Charles Shaw wines, also known as Two Buck Chuck.

Charles Shaw started selling in 2002. Industry watchers thought customers would be leery of a wine priced so low.

''We never doubted the quality of our wines," Franzia said. Sold only at the Trader Joe's grocery chain, Charles Shaw developed into a huge hit.

Franzia said his secret of selling wine so cheaply is eliminating margin -- he owns everything from vineyard plantings to bottling plants. In 2003, Bronco's revenues totaled nearly $300 million, with Two Buck Chuck accounting for about half the 10 million cases sold. Salmon Creek is on course to sell 250,000 cases this year, about double last year's totals. Franzia is counting on the $10-a-bottle restaurant niche.

''Pretty soon it'll catch a head of steam, it'll take off and then everyone will be doing it," he said.