Avenue Vine

This is written on the back label of a 1.5-liter bottle of 2004 RH Phillips Dunnigan Hills Sauvignon Blanc: "Our family has lived in the Dunnigan Hills in Northern California since our grandfather, R. H. Phillips, planted our land to wheat in the 1940s. Today the wines of R.H. Phillips Vineyards testify to three generations' knowledge of the land."

That sounds wonderful, though it doesn't mention that Phillips' grandchildren sold the business to Canada's largest wine company, Vincor International, in 2000. Kim Brown, sister of winery founder Lane Giguiere, still works at R.H. Phillips, but she's not exactly trampling grapes with her feet -- her title is communications manager.

This is fairly common. E. & J. Gallo Winery employs David Mirassou as national sales manager for Gallo-owned Mirassou winery, whose 2004 Mirassou Monterey County Riesling "embodies the optimistic spirit passed down through six generations of America's oldest winemaking family."

Similarly, James Concannon maintains an office at Concannon Vineyard, though that Livermore winery is now the flagship of the large San Francisco company the Wine Group.

Such marketing strategies are targeting a group of consumers that Constellation Brands called "Traditionalists" in an extensive marketing survey released late last year. Called "Project Genome," the survey divided consumers into six types. "Traditionalists," who the company says "need to feel that their wine is made by a well-known winery that's been around for a long time," make up 16 percent of the U.S. market, the company says.

In other words, almost one of every six wine buyers is a sucker for labels like this one on the side of a 5-liter box of NV Franzia White Zinfandel: "A new beginning -- Teresa Franzia, my grandmother, planted her first vineyard along the road to Yosemite in 1906. Her family survived Prohibition by selling these grapes to home winemakers back East. When Prohibition ended, my father and his six brothers and sisters rebuilt the winery brick by brick, barrel by barrel."

What the Franzia label history omits is that some members of the family engineered the sale of the business to the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of New York in 1973. Coke of New York later sold Franzia to the Wine Group, which ranks third in total U.S. wine sales according to Wine Business Monthly.

But the Franzia family is still involved in the wine business in a big way. Fred Franzia owns Bronco Wine Co., the nation's fourth-largest wine company by sales, according to Wine Business Monthly. And Bronco is the producer of one of the most popular "assumed name" wines in the country: Charles Shaw, also known as 'Two-Buck Chuck.' Bronco bought the brand name from a bankruptcy trustee and the wine now has no connection with its namesake.

But really, Traditionalists, how much family connection do you expect for $2?

Source: “What does 'family winery' really mean?,” W. Blake Gray, January 26, 2006