• Bronco launches sweet red wine: Bronco Wine Co., which gave the world Two Buck Chuck, will sell Crane Lake Sweet Red Table Wine through its Domaine Napa brand. The wine will retail for $5, and will no doubt infuriate the people that Bronco impresario Fred Franzia usually infuriates when he does something that isn't part of the conventional wisdom. That's because Americans aren't supposed to drink sweet wine (and white zinfandel sales have been decreasing for years). Plus, regardless of how sweet it is, it will probably be competently made, and that Franzia can sell competent wine for $5 irritates his critics no end. And how sweet will it be? About twice as sweet as Sutter Home white zinfandel.
• Inside the home of Two Buck Chuck: Fortune details the success of Trader Joe's, the California retailer that sells Franzia's Two Buck Chuck (the Charles Shaw wines that are $1.99 in California and as much as $3.49 elsewhere in the country). The story doesn't spend a lot of time on the retailer's wine business, but that it was written at all says a lot about the effort that went into it. Trader Joe's is notoriously secretive about its business (though they always return phone calls to tell you that they don't want to comment). There was some fine reporting done here. Or, as the magazine notes: "To get inside the mysterious world of Trader Joe's, Fortune spent two months speaking with former executives, competitors, industry analysts, and suppliers, most of whom asked not to be named. What emerged is a picture of a business at a crossroads: As the company expands into new markets and adds stores -- analysts say the grocer could easily triple its size in the coming years -- it must find a way to maintain its small-store vibe with customers."
• Wine industry salaries go up -- and down: Wine Business Monthly's annual salary report says that salaries fell by 1.3 percent -- but since bonuses increased by 24.5 percent, the total cash compensation in the wine industry showed an increase over 2009. Who was getting a bonus, considering what a rotten couple of years the wine business has had? Meanwhile, sales vice presidents saw salaries decline five percent, and even winemakers had salaries shrink -- the first that has happened in "many years."
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