A reader alerted me to the recent triumph at the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition of the $1.99 per bottle 2005 Chardonnay made by Charles Shaw, affectionately known as Two Buck Chuck. The wine has already made a name for itself and Fred Franzia (head of Bronco Wines, which owns the label) by proving to be an entirely drinkable, even agreeable byproduct of the California wine grape glut — as well as a nose-thumb to an industry Franzia calls egotistical, greedy, and bloated. (The colorful CEO insists, for example, that no bottle of wine can cost more than $15 to make; the rest, he says, is hype.) Now Two Buck Chuck can claim bragging rights to quality, too, after it bested 350 other wines in a blind tasting of California chardonnays from a range of prices, a couple of them costing more than $100.

How could this happen, one might ask – especially one who has tasted the Shaw line and found it, as I have, to be inoffensive indeed, but also forgettable? Click here for my two cents:

Many observers will see the triumph of Two Buck Chuck as a vindication of Franzia’s arguments about California’s wine trade, i.e., that those of us who are willing to fork out $35 for a special bottle of chardonnay are blinded by the light of a flashy name on the label, or worse, that we’re guilty of flattery at the court of enological pomp and circumstance.

But before Two Buck Chuck declares the emperor (two) buck naked, let’s consider another reason this little wine may have carried the day. It could have little to do with Two Buck’s quality, admittedly remarkable for its price point. It may have more to do with its style.

You see, in good part because it saves money, Two Buck Chuck has always been made in a clean, crisp style, with a focus on fruit flavors. (To get a rich, round mouthfeel and toasty vanilla notes in a chardonnay, a winemaker needs to fork out a lot of money for new oak barrels. Plus the wine needs to undergo an extra “malolactic” fermentation to get softer and boozier.) But Franzia’s strategy with 2BC was to do a well-made chard at a good price, without any tricks or bells and whistles.

In the meantime, a trend arose with chardonnay that had really nothing to do with 2BC, Franzia, or his economic philosophy. That trend is away from the big, buttery chards of yesteryear. Just last month, for example, I journeyed to the top of Spring Mountain to pick up my annual allotment of Pride Mountain merlot. While I was there, I tasted its just-released 2005 chardonnay (which, by the way, costs $37, or $15 for the wine plus $22 for the hype, according to Fred Franzia’s theory). “Not in our usual style,” said the woman behind the tasting bar. No kidding: I got apples, pears, lots of vibrant acidity, and a clean, refreshing finish. “Our winemaker preferred the big, buttery style,” she said. “Then he realized he couldn’t enjoy the wine with food. So he pulled back on the oak and focused more on the fruit.”

Kudos. I’ve always loved Pride’s chardonnay, but I looked back on my notes and sure enough, I haven’t bought a lot of it and don’t typically serve it with dinner. This, though, this I could see being delicious with sole, any kind of chicken, even Greek-style pizza.

Pride’s new regime of restraint got me thinking about the context that may have lead Two Buck Chuck to win a blind tasting featuring the best of Cali chards, some of them fifty times its price. Could the judges’ favor be a sign not just that we want good wine for less money, but that we want chardonnay with less oak? Even the Wine Spectator, although its editors are known for near-addiction to toasty-oak notes, acknowledged the less-oak-is-more trend by accompanying its recent review of 2005 California chardonnay with a story about “unoaked” versions. And, significantly, one of the State Fair judges commented that his panel tapped 2BC because it was “a fresh, fruity, well-balanced chardonnay that people and judges will like, though maybe not the wine critics.”

The judge doesn’t seem particularly wowed by Charles Shaw’s quality; it’s the wine’s style, which corresponds to a popular trend, that got his vote. Two Buck Chuck, he infers, has been promoted to King Charles II on the wave of a popular dissent against the evils of oak and malolactic. Your thoughts? Write your Wine Girl.