ready for Wal-Mart brand wine?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

While wine connoisseurs may not be inclined to throw a bottle of Wal-Mart brand wine into their shopping carts, there is a market for cheap wine, said Kathy Micken, professor of marketing at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R. I. She said: "The right name is important."

So, here we go: The top 12 suggested names for Wal-Mart Wine:

12. Chateau Traileur Parc

11. White Trashfindel

10. Big Red Gulp

9. Grape Expectations

8. Domaine Wal-Mart "Merde du Pays"

7. NASCARbernet

6. Chef Boyardeaux

5. Peanut Noir

4. Chateau des Moines

3. I Can't Believe It's Not Vinegar!

2. World Championship Riesling

And the number 1 name for Wal-Mart Wine ...

1. Nasti Spumante

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. Two Buck Chuck

It's the California wine with the cult following.

"Charles Shaw is known in local circles as "Two Buck Chuck," said shopper Mercy Malick.

Humble Two Buck Chuck. The $1.99 nectar of the gods that is sinfully cheap and good.

"Better than the box wines we drank in college for the same prices," another shopper told CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen.

A full year after flooding the market largely on the west coast, it's still being sold by the case to wine lovers who can't get enough.

"How long can it last? A buck 99 you know? Every time I'm here I go, 'Thank God!' it's here," said another shopper.

Even the New York Times wine critic sees it as a sort of blessing.

"It's okay. It certainly rates as well as any other $2 bottles of wine. Of which there are almost none," said wine critic Frank Prial.

And now, between toasts, "Two Buck Chuck" has become the stuff of urban legend, including the story that an airline that had gone out of business by over-purchasing the wine for its first class passengers.

There's also the story that Charles Shaw is a bighearted billionaire who wanted to expose the proletariat to the finer things in life.

Actually, it's an over-abundance of grapes that's made Charles Shaw cheap to bottle -- an estimated 5 million cases so far. It's easily outselling more famous brands like Mondavi and Gallo in California.

And Charles Shaw?

It's a wine label owned by Fred Franzia, a distant relative on the Gallo family vine. He's a reclusive businessman considered a pain in the neck to California's wine establishment.

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/02/eveningnews/main556620.shtml

[xchrom]

2. ok that tears it

white trashfindel isn't #1?
white folks seriously can't get a break any more.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

3. well, we got "Chateau Traileur Parc" too

I'd say we're well represented! :evilgrin:

[jmowreader]

4. Samuel Walton Private Reserve

Let's be serious here. Wal-Mart can't do a private label without putting Sam Walton's name, or something related to Sam Walton, on it. Look at their dog food: Ol' Roy. Named after Sam's favorite bird dog. The dog only lived to eleven years, which indicates that either Ol' Roy ain't all that good for your dog, or it has such a luscious taste that after eleven years of eating that shit Ol' Roy ran out in front of a logging truck to end the agony of a steady diet of Ol' Roy.

So they're going to name it after Sam Walton. Samuel Walton Private Reserve will have the added attraction of being the first wine ever to be cross-merchandised in the floor cleaner, paint stripper and rust remover aisles.

[Philosophy]

5. Red Infidel

Because of course it will be made by godless Chinese commie slave labor like everything else they sell.

[Interrobang]

6. They should just pick up a co-branding deal with Rotted Grape...

...which is a real, genuine (or at least used to be) wine brand from somewhere in British Columbia. My parents have been wine drinkers since before drinking wine was cool, and this stuff was beyond bad -- lived down to its name, you might say. Plus it was very inexpensive --

--which makes it the perfect cheap-ass crap to sell at Wal-Mart with the rest of their cheap-ass crap.