The best chardonnay in the land

If someone asked you what the best chardonnay was, what would you answer? Let's restrict things to California, for funsies.

Of course, there is many many "right" answers, since taste is in the tongue of the beholder.
And while Beringer, Hobbs and Kistler are all potential answers, you could also argue that 2 Buck Chuck (2BC), officially known as Charles Shaw, sold for $2/bottle at Trader Joes throughout California is also a contender. How can you go wrong with a reliable chardonnay that only costs $2 bottle. Heck a glass at most restaurants costs at least 3X this much. Certainly by sales volume, measured by the bottle, 2BC is the "best" wine out there.

But what if I told you that Two Buck Chuck was the best Chardonnay in California regardless of price? Why that's crazy talk, you'd say. Except that 2BC was deemed the best Chardonnay from California at the recent California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition in Sacramento. There was no price limitation. The chardonnay received 98 points, a double gold, with accolades of Best of California and Best of Class. There were 300+ chardonnays submitted, so it was not as if 2BC beat a small or weak field. So... what happened?

This is a blind judging, so the tasters were not influenced by brand or price. One of the veteran judges said about the result: "... Charles Shaw won because it is a fresh, fruity, well-balanced chardonnay that people and wine judges — though maybe not wine critics — will like.”

Now this result is causing a bit of consternation among the wine world. I mean if a $2 wine is really that good, the rest of the wineries should just pack it up. The high end wine world has offered a variety of reasons such as

• the judges at this state fair weren't very good
• there must have been palate fatigue setting in after tasting so many wine
  
• it is conventional wisdom that middle of the road wines wines often wine competitions since extreme wines garner their fair share of detractors
• it is hard to judge wines blindly
• it was a clean unoaked chardonnay and many people are tired of oaky chardonnays
• who the heck knows what happened, but let's totally ignore tasting competitions at state fairs from now on.
• perhaps Bronco wines which makes 2BC sent specially selected bottles to the tasting. As someone who made wines themself said, "I make wines and send them to the fairs. Do you think I would send them a bad bottle?". On the other hand, I can't believe they Charles Shaw would send a ringer bottle....

My personal take, is that if you have never tasted wines blind, you won't understand. Blind tasting is the great leveler (or humiliator). And it is possible that everybody on the tasting panel liked the 2BC, which would be enough to get it very high marks.... This unfortunately doesn't explain why none of the other 250+ wines (except a Wente wine from near Livermore, which also got double gold) didn't get equally high marks....

Finally there were "only" 100,000 cases made of the 2005 2BC Chardonnay, so it could sell out fast once the news hits. After all people by 2BC by the case.