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Never Mind Its Court Loss, Bronco Launches a New California Brand
Fred Franzia creates Harlow Ridge label for wines that went into Napa Ridge
Posted: May 19, 2006
One of the old truisms of the wine industry is that it takes 10 years to build a brand. But Fred Franzia, CEO of Bronco Wine Co., says it now takes 10 minutes, and he hopes to prove the point with a new label, Harlow Ridge.
Ceres, Calif.-based Bronco, best known for its huge-selling Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck) brand, officially launched Harlow Ridge on May 16, five months after the conclusion of its unsuccessful legal effort to overturn a California labeling law restricting its use of three other brand names. The law, passed in 2000, requires any wine containing "Napa" or a Napa subappellation in its name to be made using at least 75 percent Napa-grown grapes.
The litigation ended Jan. 23, when the U.S. Supreme Court denied Bronco's final request for appeal. That meant that Bronco's Napa Ridge, Napa Creek and Rutherford Vintners brands could no longer be made with grapes from the California Central Valley, where Franzia owns more than 35,000 acres of vineyards.
Wines previously bottled under the Napa Ridge label now go into Harlow Ridge, named for the 33 Harlow Court address of Bronco's bottling facility near the Napa Valley airport. There are currently eight bottlings: Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Zinfandel and white Zinfandel. They bear a Lodi appellation and will retail for about $8 to $10. Franzia expects production of his new brand to top a half-million cases within a year.
The Harlow Ridge label is more or less identical to Napa Ridge, which will now be used exclusively for Napa appellation wines. In a settlement reached with a key opponent in the case, the Napa Valley Vintners association, Bronco agreed it would only make its three Napa brands with at least 75 percent Napa grapes, even though Franzia could conceivably have shifted production to another state or country to get around the law, which only applies to wines made in California.
Franzia believes the courts got the decision wrong, but he's now focused on his new brand. "We don't back down from a fight. But we'll do better with Harlow Ridge than we did with Napa Ridge, because it doesn't have the stigma," he said.
