Oak Leaf Vineyards / Two Buck Chuck
August 2, 2008
Over six months I have had the Oak Leaf Vineyards wines listed on my site. This is my biggest wine on my site. When I first started this site I thought Two-Buck-Chuck was the best wine under $4.00. I may be wrong. The responses from all you visitors have been all positive. I do not think I have one negative comment on Oak Leaf Vineyards. Let’s let the challenge begin. Tell us what you thing of th taste between the two, the occasion you enjoyed or hated it, or what your guest thought about it.
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8 Responses to “Oak Leaf Vineyards / Two Buck Chuck”
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We like the Oak Leaf Pinot Grigio/Chardonnay and for an every day wine, it cannot be beat!
Oak Leaf Chardonnay is a great white wine. It does’nt matter if you are serving it on your deck, patio, driveway or at your formal dining room table it will get rave reviews!
We’ve tried the Oak Leaf Cab and White Zin. We enjoyed both better than two buck Chuck. The cab is a bit thin but smooth and a good buy for the $3 price.
We discovered Oak Leaf wines while working in Tampa. We have moved to Mississippi and Oak Leaf is not sold in Wal-Mart stores here. Where is the closest location where we can buy a case or two?
For the price oak leaf can not be beat. it is a great wine. It stands the test against the other more expensive wines out there…im used to drinking robert mondavi but i have found my new choice of wine and it is oak leaf.
I like the Merlot, it tastes good and it’s $1.97 at Walmart, I did notice that I don’t get the same Jolly Buzz that I get from Mondavi Merlot. But it tastes good and if you want to drink wine daily for the taste and health benefits and your on a budget you can’t beat a bottle of wine that costs the same as a tall can of beer…….
This is a California wine and tastes better than alot of $10 wines from Australia and New Zealand.
The Oak Leaf Pinot Grigio/ Chard is one of the best wines because it goes with just about everything, including wine snobs who only have their $50 - $95 bottles. I faked them out saying it was gift I wanted to share. They were most impressed and didn’t know it was not an expensive wine!!!! It doesn’t need to cost a lot to have a nice taste and pull one over on pretentious wine-snobs.
I agree it is every bit as good as Australian and New Zealand wines.
Oak Leaf Vineyards (Ripon, Calif.) does not really exist as such; instead it is a production facility of The Wine Group, Inc. Oak Leaf wine is the private label non-vintage wine marketed by The Wine Group (the box wine people) only to Wal-Mart stores. (Not E&J Gallo as some reviews contend.)
Headquartered in San Francisco (about 70 miles west of Ripon), The Wine Group’s labels include such well known brands as Corbett Canyon, Inglenook, Mogen David, Franzia, Almaden and Glen Ellen wines. The firm recently relocated their operations center from San Francisco to Livermore, Calif., about mid-way between San Francisco and Ripon.
Privately held, The Wine Group was once part of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of New York. And being privately held, its operation and products are kept pretty much secret. It doesn’t even have a corporate website, although it does have brand-related sites. Strange for the second largest wine producer in California (more than 40 million cases produced annually), second only to Gallo.
Oak Leaf wines are very similar to Bronco’s Charles Shaw wines (affectionately nicknamed “Two Buck Chuck”) which sells for $1.99 at Trader Joe’s stores. Headquartered in Monrovia, Calif., Trader Joe’s 300 stores has sold millions of cases of what the trade calls “extreme value wines.” Due to transportation charges to outlying states, the price can be a dollar more.
The Charles Shaw label is a brand of the Bronco Wine Company (Ceres, Calif.) owned by John and Fred Franzia (formerly of Franzia Brothers wines.) The Franzias (nephews of Ernest Gallo) sold the Franzia brand name to The Wine Group and started Bronco Wines and they are competitors. The Franzia family, which now has no relationship to Franzia brand boxed wine, has made wine in California for over 100 years. Bronco is California’s third largest wine producer.
Oak Leaf Vineyards (which doesn’t even have its own telephone number) is one of hundreds of wine brands bottled by The Wine Group in Ripon. It does not release the private labels of the wines it makes but there are many.
Oak Leaf wines come in five varietals: Cabenet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio/Chardonnay and White Zinfandel. The standard 750-ml bottles with an artificial cork have an elegant label that shows four seasonal oak trees, one for Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.
We are not one to place a lot of importance on awards since it seems all wineries get them. But Oak Leaf Vineyards did win a gold medal at the prestigious Florida State International Wine Competition and Silver and Bronze at the 2008 San Francisco Wine Competition. Incredible for a $3 wine! And the Summer-2008 edition of “O at Home” magazine (an Oprah Winfrey publication) featured Oak Leaf wine on its cover with the tag line: “The $3 bottle of wine that will blow you away.” On page 19, they picture Oak Leaf Chardonnay and call it “The steal of the season.”
I like the Cabernet Sauvignon best myself. It is a full favored, medium body wine with a fruity aroma of berry, spice, vanilla and oak …pretty smooth and no unpleasant aftertaste. This is not a sophisticated wine but a terrific value at $2.97.
Wine snobs won’t like it because it is inexpensive and comes from Wal-Mart. But the fact is that it is better than one would expect. I certainly have had $10-$15 French wine far worse. Wal-Mart sells out of it fast, so I buy several bottles whenever they have it. So far, it has been consistently good …a problem with low price wines. (One bottle may be good, the next not so good.) The Oak Leaf brand is perfect for an everyday wine to compliment dine-in dinner and snacks on the patio. Goes with almost anything. I rate it an “80″ out of 100.