89: Shocking Secrets of the Wine Industry: What Are They Hiding? | Dark History with Bailey Sarian
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I've always wanted to love wine. I really did. But I hate it. It's awful. It gives me like a massive headache.

Cold sweats at night, not worth it. And then on top of that, I'm like, I just don't understand why. Like, isn't it just grapes? Why am I so sick? So I started to look into what the hell is in wine. And it turns out there's all kinds of wild stuff in there. Sawdust and fish bladders. The road to wine in America is paved with depressed housewives, enslaved communities, and false advertising.

Hi friends, I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. This is a chance to tell a story like it is and to share the history of stuff that, you know, a lot of us don't even think about. So all you have to do is sit back, relax, and let's talk about that hot, juicy history gauze.

The other day I was out with some make-believe friends and we were ordering drinks. And we went to one of those fancy places that had only like a few things on the menu and four types of house wines. First of all, who

Whose house? Right? Like, okay. Unfortunately for me, wine is kind of hard to avoid because it's everywhere, right? The United States is actually the world's number one consumer of wine. I guess we Americans just can't get enough of it. I mean, it was the preferred beverage of...

I don't know, Jesus? So, I mean, that says something. Now, I know wine can be very polarizing. People have all sorts of opinions about it, and there are entire cultures and societies dedicated to the love of wine. I'm talking about that fine wine scene. There's even careers dedicated to knowing all the different types of wine and where they come from and what makes them so special. But I'm more interested in finding out where the hell did wine actually come from, right?

Well, that's what I was thinking. Like who found a bunch of old grape juice and said, "Hell yeah, I'll drink this." Where's that person? I want to talk to them. So let's talk about where wine started and how it got to you

And me. We do know that wine drinking started a long, long time ago with something called fermentation. Fermentation, which is the process that turns any liquid into alcohol, is a natural thing that just happens in nature. Scientists have found birds and monkeys in the wild straight up drunk after they've eaten fermented berries or rotten fruit. Joan, I see you coming in here all sloppy, flopping around, smelling like liquor. Ah!

My personal favorite drunk animal story was a moose in Sweden. Yeah, a moose in Sweden. That made headlines after he ate a ton of rotten apples, which got him wasted. And then I guess he got somehow stuck in a tree. Yeah, I was like, I just call that a Tuesday night. Am I right? But I wanted to know, when did wine go from like rotten fruit to something sacred? Turns out that wine and religion go all

all the way back to the year 30,000 BC. Yeah, we're talking old school caveman time. Now there's actually evidence out there that the earliest cave drawings ever done were drawn under the influence of wine. Makes sense why those lines are so sloppy. Scholars found these cave drawings and after studying them, they found that they were probably done by ancient, maybe drunk shamans.

Shamans, for those of you who haven't done ayahuasca in Mexico after a breakup, are basically spiritual guides who lead people through important rituals. These rituals traditionally include some sort of drug or alcohol.

And that's when wine entered the chat. These shaman drawings were found in what is today Europe and Southeast Asia, but wine was actually a global phenomenon pretty early on. We found proof of wine in 8,000-year-old pottery fragments in modern-day Georgia, not the state in America. Georgia the country. I know. And the drawings on this old-ass pottery show clusters of grapes with men dancing around them. Which, like, if we insert a picture here...

I was like, I don't see any guys dancing. I don't know what they're talking about. Like if I squint, maybe? Sure.

Whatever. Then, in ancient Egypt around 4000 BC, wine was considered something that was sacred. King Tut was buried with three wine jars, you know, just in case he got a little thirsty in the afterlife. The Egyptians even had a monthly Day of Intoxication, which was a religious ceremony that was honestly just an excuse to really rage and party and get wasted. We should bring it back. Well, I think we kind of have that now with Burning Man.

But the cavemen and Egyptians, they weren't alone in thinking this way. The Greeks, the Romans, the Christians, the Catholics, the ancient Hebrews, and so many more have believed that wine is divine.

Holy. A gift from above. And especially back then, all they knew was that sometimes grape just like miraculously became this liquid that made you all warm and tingly inside. I mean, it's the same reason the Greeks associate bad weather with angry gods and Zeus with lightning bolts. They were just trying to make sense of the world in a time before microscopes and Google. So this state of shwasted, which we just think of as being tipsy, blitz,

Turnt was actually a religious experience for these ancient civilizations. Wine was like a prayer. It was a way of processing trauma, letting go of inhibitions and getting closer to God or multiple gods if you wanted. It had so many possibilities. It relaxed you, made you want to open up to your fellow man. Alcohol does literally alter your consciousness

So it made sense that ancient cultures put wine up on that altar and decided this stuff, yeah, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. We like this shit. And no matter which god you pray to, you wanted to make sure you could say thank you for that good-ass time you were having.

Speaking of people who know how to have a good ass time, no one did it better than the ancient Romans. And when they wanted to let their hair down, they turned to a god named Bacchus. He was the god of like many things, including...

wine. And the ancient Romans had a special way of celebrating him. They hosted infamous secret parties called Bacchanalias. A Bacchanalia was a night of wild partying in ancient Rome that celebrated total freedom from societal rules and regulations. Now, it happened about three times a year, usually around harvest time, and was typically done in secret, out in like the countryside under the cover of darkness.

This party would last like all night until the sun came up. And the whole goal of the night was to induce a kind of trance where you just stopped feeling any insecurities or hangups. You could just get naked, dance, and experience total euphoria. I mean, dildos were actually a part of this event. So...

Sounds like a good time. Now here's a twist. These parties were only for women. They were like bachelorette parties, but like on crack, you know? No men, just free spirit vibes, man. And a shitload of wine. And the reason they were so secretive was because women could get in huge trouble if they were caught drinking wine or even just in general, worshiping their wine god. Let's say your husband caught you at one of these parties. Ooh.

Off with her head. I mean, it was pretty risky for them. Oh, for what though? A little bit of freedom? Jeez. Women who went to these all-nighters were called Maynads, which means raving ones in Latin, because it was believed that these Maynads were literally possessed by their wine god, just like those shamans we talked about. It was believed that while Maynads were under Bacchus' influence, a.k.a.

they had supernatural powers and strengths, which is like sick. Yeah, bro. This was ancient Rome's version of witches and people were scared as hell of maenads. By 188 BC, the men were starting to get a little jealous and they're like, hey, should we just like crash their party, you guys? And then the maenads were like,

Okay, fine. But we're still bringing the dildos. Now that the men were involved, all of a sudden they were now socially acceptable. And this is when these parties morphed into straight up drunken orgies. But just two, honestly, it must've smelled so bad. But just two years later, the Roman Senate, yeah, they had a Senate, banned them because they were getting too out of hand. See, this is why we can't invite men to bachelorette parties. They ruin everything. We were having fun until you arrived.

Every religion usually has an opinion on wine. It's sacred in Judaism and Christianity. I mean, according to the New Testament, Jesus' first public miracle was turning water to wine. Incredible party trick that guy had. My party trick is just telling everyone I'm going to the kitchen for a soda, and then I just leave.

They never know. And because it was seen as religious, wine wasn't seen as a luxury only to be enjoyed by the elite. Oh nay nay. It was considered a staple of life for people of all classes and all ages. Yeah.

So wine is taking over the world, just riding religion's coattails and moving from country to country, expanding its reach. And this brings us to Europe during the Middle Ages. From about the year 500 to 1500, the best wine in Europe was made in vineyards that were run by monks and nuns exclusively for their churches. Some of these vineyards were in business for 700 years.

100 years making the same wines from the same grapes for the same church. That's kind of like longer than America has been around. So that's a long time. One of these church vineyards made a burgundy wine that was so tasty, it was said to be described as quote, "So smooth that it slips down the throat like baby Jesus in satin diapers." Yeah, that's a direct quote. Guess who said that shit?

from the nun who ran the vineyards hundreds of years ago. She knew her baby Jesus taste.

So wine is moving and grooving and really spreads its roots into France. From the soil to the climate to different types of grapes, France was a natural home for wine. Since the year 1000, which is when France's first vineyard was in full operation, the French had the entire world convinced that if you wanted good wine, you had to get it from France. French wines were king of the world until a scrappy, pain-in-the-ass country showed up and decided to get into the wine game.

That's right, baby. America, America. A lot of people like to say that the pilgrims over in America were sipping on some version of wine at the first Thanksgiving. That's because we actually have a firsthand account from Edward Winslow, a colonist who was at the first Thanksgiving. Come on in, Edward. We're so happy to have you. Firsthand account. Just kidding, he's dead.

He said there were, quote, "Grapes, white and red, very sweet and strong, growing in the nearby woods." So if there was wine there, it was most likely naturally fermented. But we do know that wine was important to those early settlers. By the summer of 1630, the Massachusett... Uh-oh. This is a word I cannot say, but I'm gonna try my best. By the summer of 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was making wine from local grapes.

Fucking nailed it, you guys. In figuring out how to make wine was a top priority for community leaders like governors. Some say they wanted to make money off of it, but the more than likely reason, according to historians, is that this wine would be used for religious purposes. Even though they were Puritans, they still got down with that Jesus juice. But like a lot of things in those early years of America, there was a whole lot of trial and error by the settlers to make their own wine.

Oof, they were running into a few issues. First of all, New England winters can be hellish. Secondly, the quality of the wine was inconsistent at best, and that's mostly because they weren't bottling it yet. In most cultures, they would bottle their wine and drink it the same year so they wouldn't need to worry about, you know, things going bad.

But for a long time, wine was just stored in those big wooden barrels outside. See, exhibit A. Joan brought her barrel. She loves her wine. So they'd open up the top of a barrel, you know, and just like those sketchy punch bowls at prom, yeah, they just like dunk the cup right in there with their nasty hands. Ugh, ugh. They probably just like wipe their ass and then they're getting wine. Ugh. Now, as you can imagine,

This wine wasn't always stored properly so it could get funky real quick. But they weren't gonna like toss out the whole keg of slightly sketchy wine, give me a break, but they had to do something about the taste.

Let's put on our lab coats for a minute because we're gonna talk about science. Exposing wine to oxygen can help it taste better, but too much oxygen can spoil it. And you leave wine out long enough, it just turns into vinegar. This pilgrim wine was on the road to Vinegertown and they had to do something about the flavor. So to make it taste better, they would add things to it like cheese. Yeah, you know, for taste. Before they figured out how to stop wine from rotting,

They would just swirl in some cheese. My first question was, well, what kind of cheese? Because I think that makes a difference. Well, it turns out cheese from sheep's milk is especially good at hiding that yucky ass taste. Now this cheese, the sheep's milk cheese, is described as, quote, creamy and gritty.

Choices were definitely made, but they were working with what they got, you know? Other things were also used to mask the flavor and smell because it was kind of stinky. So in turn, they were using herbs, honey, and even salt water to save the wine. It's kind of like if you Febreze yourself instead of taking a shower. You're still stinky, but...

The Febreze just really tones it down a bit and that's what they were doing. They were just trying to mask the stinky rotten smell of this wine. But while all of this was happening on the east coast, something really interesting was happening with wine on the west coast. In 1697, Father Juan Lugarte did something that would change the wine world forever.

Father Juan and a group of Jesuit priests made their way up from Mexico into an area known as Baja, California. Now they were headed for something called a mission, which is like a church set up in an area where people don't really believe in Jesus. And the whole mission of the mission is to save all of those souls.

So when Father Juan and his merry missionaries arrived at the mission, one of their very first things they did was take a whole bunch of grape seeds and vines and jam them into the ground. Priorities, you know? They planted them because you can't practice Christianity without a little wine. I mean, come on, that's the blood of Christ. We need it.

And over the next hundred years, more missions were built along the West Coast, from San Diego to Los Angeles and all the way up to San Francisco. And as the word of God spread, wine was along for the ride. But about 150 years later, something popped off, which would take those sleepy mission vineyards and turn them into big vineyards.

- Dark history. In 1848, a carpenter, not Jesus, a different carpenter, was overseeing the building of a sawmill on a river in California when he noticed there was something shiny in the water. Ooh, it caught his eye. His suspicions were confirmed. He had found gold, baby. I love gold.

Well, word spread like a damn wildfire and there was gold all over California, just ripe for the pickin'. Now this ignited what became known as the California Gold Rush of 1849. And people showed up in Southern California with axes in their hands and dollar signs in their eyes. I mean, they want some of that gold. But some of them would end up making money in a way that had nothing to do with gold.

You see what happened was California became a state in 1850. And the very first thing the state did, like right out the gate, they passed a law that went after native Californians. It was called the Indian Indenture Act. And it allowed cops, politicians, and people in power to arrest Native Americans for being quote, lazy or drunk in public, end quote. So after they got arrested,

they'd be able to get out of this mess by paying a fine, right? But there was a catch. Native Californian communities like the Tongva tribe, who had been in Southern California for thousands of years before any of these literal gold diggers showed up,

they were struggling with poverty. When people started rushing to California and taking their land, I mean, it just completely ruined their lives. They were left in a shitty position where they couldn't pay for most things, including the fines when they got arrested on these, you know,

bullshit charges. And even worse, native Californians couldn't complain or sue anyone based on how they were treated because there was literally a law that said they couldn't testify against white men in court. So in order to avoid jail time, native Californians had pretty much one option: do a week of hard manual labor to pay off the fine. And what was the industry that so desperately needed labor at the time? Well, wouldn't you know?

The wine vineyards. Before 1850, wine was pretty much always imported from other countries. It did not come from the United States at all. It was expensive and pretty difficult to get. I mean, a lot of people don't know this, but before Napa became known as wine country, Los Angeles, California was actually the center of winemaking in America. If you wanted your wine, chances are you'd get it from the City of Vines, aka Los Angeles.

But back then, they didn't have machines to help them harvest grapes. They literally had to hire people to handpick and stomp the grapes into wine juice. Which I hope we've all seen that I Love Lucy scene. You know, the wine stomping. It always seemed like so much fun. But imagine being forced to do that all day long. I mean, pretty much non-stop in the horrible heat. Ah,

Awful. After a week of hard labor, they were free to go. But usually the veneer owners could send them off with like a nice little thank you present, which was like wine. I don't know. Money would be nice. Anyway, the wine that they were being gifted, ooh, it was strong.

The alcohol content was so high, it was actually stronger than a full glass of vodka today. We wanna talk about party. That's a par- party. Now, you might be thinking, wow, that's so nice of them. Until you realize, it was a trap.

The owners, they only did this in the hopes that the native Californians would get drunk off of that wine they gave them and then get caught being drunk in public. And then they'd get sent back to the veneer to do more free work. That was...

It was indentured servitude, which is just another way to say slavery. And this went on for 13 long years. Now that they could get free labor through slavery, wealthy men bought up land and grape vines all over California to build their own vineyards.

You see, the government at the time was giving land owners all sorts of incentives to make wine like tax breaks, you know? And pretty soon, word on the street was if you could get a vineyard going,

Ooh, you could be rich, dirty rich. So rich you wouldn't know what to do. It was the American dream and everyone wanted a piece of it. In the year 1855, there were only around 32,000 grape vines in California total. And by 1859, there were over 6 million.

When California started pumping out those bottles, New York started getting their wine from California instead of Europe. I mean, hey, it was cheaper and shipping costs alone to get Californian wine instead of French baby Jesus wine. And from that moment on, Californian wine was every American's go-to affordable table wine.

So California's wine game starts popping off. Not just because of the climate or the missionaries or like the gold rush. It's because for decades, winemakers enslaved Native American communities and grew their business using free labor. Something else that was helping wine really pop off, in the 1800s and early 1900s, a ton of people immigrated to America.

Over 11 million people between 1850 and 1910 alone. And many of these people came from countries with a strong wine culture. So with that being said, the demand for wine went up. And California's wine production went wild. By 1910, 90% of the wine consumed in America came from these California vineyards. And everything seems great and happy and wow, wow, so amazing, oh my God. But then, later...

a little thing called the prohibition happens. Yay. I won't get into like the nitty gritty of it all, but it was a rough 13 year period when booze was illegal in America. But many people saw this coming, I guess, because leading up to the law going into effect, people stocked up on wine. You know, like you guys did with the toilet paper during COVID. You guys did that and I bought myself a bidet off of Amazon.

Anyway, Congress passed the prohibition law in 1919. After prohibition went into effect, no one could legally produce, distribute, or sell alcohol. But, you know,

a couple interesting loopholes that allowed wine to continue to thrive. First of all, during prohibition, there was a backdoor way to make wine at home. And it wasn't just like a few bottles of the stuff, you know? People could make 200 gallons or...

about 1,000 bottles of homemade wine legally. Well, not all the people could do it. There was an exception in the law that allowed vineyards to sell wine grapes to the male heads of households. So as long as they use it to preserve fruit through fermentation. California vineyards started shipping these things

called wine bricks to people all over the country. Now these were like tight packages of concentrated grape juice, which could then be turned into wine. You know, kind of like a Chia Pet. You just add water. Like we learned in our season one episode about prohibition, these wine bricks had some handy instructions printed on them. Basically it told consumers how to make sure that this brick they received in the mail does not turn into wine.

Wink wink. Well, people like would accidentally follow these instructions that they were told not to follow. And because of this, millions of people learned how to make wine. And DIY kept America buzzed for years and led to massive growth in California's vineyards. Now that people were making wine at home, demand for grapes, they went through the roof. I mean, this was the only way you're gonna get wine during the prohibition, so.

You need grapes. In 1919, the price of a ton of wine grapes was $9.50. Two years into prohibition, it then cost $82 per ton. If my math is math and right, that's a huge increase. And the second prohibition wine loophole brings us back to the church. There was an exception in the law that allowed

Wine to be used for religious purposes. You know, sacramental wine. So a good number of wineries were allowed to stay open, saying that they were only making sacramental wine for the Catholic services. You know, nothing to see here. By 1924, about four years of people buying a lot more grapes than usual, the federal government finally got a little...

So spesh. They're like, what the fuck is really going on? Why do you guys like grapes so much? Apparently, Sacramento wine production grew to nearly 1 million gallons in only two years. So they decided to crack down on all that at-home winemaking. And you know, that had to suck.

It's the middle of prohibition, you finally figured out a way to get, you know, a good buzz. And then the feds come knocking at your door. You open the door with some wine teeth. We're just in the middle of the bible study, Ossifer. We're just studying Jesus' wine rugs. During prohibition, roughly half a million people were arrested on charges of drinking. And of those people, two of

of every three would end up convicted.

The fine for being caught drinking at this time was $5,000, which in today's money is like $75,000. That fine alone could literally ruin your life. Finally, after 13 long ass years, prohibition comes to an end in 1933. A lot of things go back to normal, but there were some lasting consequences. If you're like me, you've probably found yourself in HomeGoods on a Tuesday night

wondering why the hell there's a whole aisle devoted to little wooden signs that say things like, it's wine o'clock or it's mom's turn to wine. Well, what's interesting is that wine mom culture didn't originate at HomeGoods and it wasn't invented by someone named Ray Dunn. Ugh, nah. Ray Dunn is that annoying font that they use for like, wine o'clock, live, laugh, love. Oh, it's so ugly. It hurts my eyes and I start to cry. And I'm like, no.

In those days, it was seen as pretty taboo for a woman to be seen drunk or even drinking. It kind of went against the whole concept of what was feminine at the time. People thought women should be sweet, innocent caretakers. And if they were moms, they should never be off the clock. Oh!

So just like we saw in those Roman Bacchanalias, women drinking wine was something in the 1950s and 60s that had to be done with discretion. AKA inside the house with the windows closed and like shut in and you're alone and like you can't see anything, but you better not get caught, you know?

I meant that there were a lot of American housewives who were lonely, isolated, maybe just bored, and turned to wine for self-medication. So when one of America's biggest trendsetters at the time got into wine, it was just an excuse for these wine mommies to lean in even a little bit harder. In the 1960s, Jackie Kennedy hosted a TV tour of the White House, oh yeah, where she showed off her table setting, which included crystal wine glasses.

And everyone wanted to be Jackie O. I mean, she was literally that bitch of her time. Kind of like America's Queen Victoria, everyone wanted to do what she was doing. So this essentially launched a huge surge in wine glass sales and

wine sales. That year, there were 163 million gallons of wine sold in the United States. That's a lot of booze. Pretty soon, Hollywood stars start advertising wine and the culture around drinking loosens up a bit, you know? I mean like, hey, if the first lady's doing it, why not me? I can do it too. I'm like Jackie O. Hmm.

In the 1970s, America started to get very serious about wine. As in, there were literal wine competitions. Now, a lot of these competitions happened in France because the wine culture there had had, and always will be, very strong. And the French thought that they did wine like no one else. You know, they kind of snubbed their nose at California. They thought California wine, eh, it's a joke. Don't kid me. Mom slash dark history. ♪

The date is May 24th, the year 1976. The place? Paris, France. For years, there had been heated arguments about who created the best quality wine. Was it the French who had been doing it for hundreds of years? Or was it the Americans who are new to the game but have some

solid techniques. Now this was a fierce debate. So a blind taste test was organized and people were eager to hear the results. So the glasses are poured without any of the judges seeing and the taste testing begins. Well, when all is said and done, not only does the USA win the white wine category, but they also beat the French in the coveted

red wine category. Now people's heads were exploding. One French judge demanded her ballot back. The other French judges were equally as butthurt and said, quote, "If there's one thing French wines do better than any wine in the world, it's that they age well." They were certain that California wines wouldn't hold up. And if they did this taste test again in like 30 years, the French would definitely win. Talk about a bunch of sour grapes.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm here all day. Thank you. So guess what? 30 years goes by. Yeah. They took this very seriously. They ended up doing another blind taste test. Again, 30 years later. And guess who came out on top? Ooh, once again, USA spanked France right in the booty. Oh.

A little spanking. I just wanna spank. This whole thing became known as the Judgment of Paris, and it really gave American wine some street cred on the world stage. Before this, American wine was considered gutter juice, but now its dominance was undeniable.

And the homes of that world-class wine became Napa Valley in Northern California. People from far and wide come to take in the gorgeous sights, walk through the vineyards and taste the finest wine America has to offer. But there was still one big problem. Wine culture is a bit hard to swallow.

The dad jokes. Like I had mentioned earlier, anytime I drink wine, I get a headache. I feel really sick. I get cold sweats. It's just not a good time. And I guess this isn't like a normal response. So I got to researching and what I found was honestly shocking.

I was like, oh, this is why I'm getting sick because it's bullshit. Wine today has all sorts of gnarly stuff in it. In the US, wine, just like fragrance, is kind of like the Wild West because when it comes to the mystery chemicals that get thrown in during the process, there's a lot we don't know about it. Currently, the US allows over 72 different chemicals to be added into wine. 72 different chemicals, huh?

Yeah. Now these are things like preservatives, things to stop the fermentation process and also stop any molds from getting in, which sure, yeah, we want that. But like, you know, it's things that you would also never expect. Like sawdust.

Did you hear me? Yeah. Sawdust is in your wine. Things that are known to cause cancer. And then fish bladders and something called chitosan, which is crushed up seafood shells from like crabs and lobsters. So it was at this point where I was like, wait a minute, nutritional labels?

How come those aren't on wine? You know, it's a beverage. I was, 'cause I was looking on the back and there isn't one. I don't get that. If soda and sports drinks have to list what's in them, shouldn't wine? Well, there's yet another loophole that allows wine to keep its weird ass ingredient list. Hush, hush.

When you see a nutritional label, that means that the product itself is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA. But wine, she's regulated by something called the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. And right on their website, they say, quote, end quote.

And since no one is really checking wine, some crazy things have been reported. Now, most big wine companies in the United States don't handpick their grapes anymore. And there's this rumor online, well, more of like a theory called the claw theory. The claw theory.

You know, some companies were said to use giant mechanical claws to harvest their grapes. And in the process, if like a little rat or a few pigeons or maybe like an animal got stuck in there, oh well, they'd be crushed up into the wine too. Yeah, think about that for a second. Let that marinate. Yeah, that's powerful. I mean, it's like 2023. Why can't we get shit together? It's not that hard. Why do they, they just want to kill us all the time. It's so annoying.

I mean, there's really no way to make sure there aren't other things in your wine like bird shit, turtle bones, a hand, I don't know. And honestly, we'd never know the difference. Take me back to that Nunn wine. Am I right? Simpler times. Then in the 1970s, a guy comes along who is determined to stick it to the elitist wine culture and prove that wine is for the people.

Not just for the 1%. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Fred Franzia. And also, no, I know it's kind of confusing, but it's not the Box Wine Company. No, this is another guy. Yeah, I don't know. Growing up, Fred's whole life was centered around wine. His Italian grandparents started their own winery in California in the 1910s, and his parents took over the business in the late 40s. And while some kids were delivering newspapers or, I don't know, working at McDonald's, serving up fries,

Fred was working right alongside his family at the winery. After college, he even started working in their sales department and the winery did so well, Coca-Cola came in and bought them for $49 million. Damn. Now,

Now, Fred was like, look, baby, I'm ready to go out on my own. So he started his own winery in 1973 called Bronco Wine Company in Ceres, California. Now, when I first heard Bronco White Wine, I was like, oh, my God, it's giving very OJ on the run, isn't it?

Snaps. Right from the get-go, he's like, I'm going to do things differently because he had the secret weapon that all successful businesses have. Fred understood that value is something created in the mind of the consumers.

Huh? Basically, if you tell consumers a product is good quality, they'll believe you. I guess that's true. Oh, I'm such a sucker for that shit. They'll be like, this bullshit is great for your face because it is. And I'll be like, give me some of that bullshit. I put it all over my face and bullshit does nothing for me. But if you tell me it's good for some reason, I'm like, yeah, that's good. What is that? We're so fucked up. Help me. It didn't matter if they used random ass grapes from a random ass part of the country. If you can make people believe

the wine in their glass was high quality, then it was high quality. Period. Fred's company was known for selling tons of bottles of white Zinfandel from Napa Valley. Now the problem was...

Fred was starting to blur the lines a little bit because he wasn't really selling white Zinfandel, which was an expensive wine to make that housewives at the time just loved. What Fred was selling was a barrel of random white wine. And the only reason he got away with calling it white Zinfandel is because of a hack he had his employees do.

Something called, quote, blessing the load. End quote. Yeah. His employees would grab a couple of leaves from actual Zinfandel grapes and then like sprinkle them all over the barrels of the random white wine. And he's like, ta-da! It's a Zinfandel. It's got the leaves in there. You can't tell me it's not. But to you and I, I think we can both say it wasn't. It was just like random white wine with floating Zinfandel leaves. Ha ha ha.

And honestly, you gotta give him props. It's kind of genius. No one questioned him. You know, it's also like sprinkling glitter on a piece of poop. Or like that time I went on ebay.com, that website, you know? And I bought, now I thought I was buying a fancy Chanel bag. But yeah, but when I opened up the box, the bag itself said Chanel.

I was like, "Oh, my channel bag has come." Now Fred ended up doing this with many different types of wine for years before he got caught in the early 1990s. I guess he was brought into court and was forced to pay a fine of $2.5 million. I mean, yes, this was indeed shady, but his reasoning was actually pretty interesting to me. It wasn't just about greed, allegedly. Fred had this core belief that wine should be for everyone, which means it should be affordable.

He had this famous quote that no bottle of wine should cost more than $10. Love to hear that. Fred's belief that wine should be affordable really paid off with customers. Bronco Wines continued to be very successful. It's actually still one of the most successful wine companies in America. And his most famous product is something that many people still drink today. Smartest way to hire.

In 1974, a man named Charles Shaw was taking a totally different approach to wine than Fred. He made award-winning wine that people were living for. It was a French-inspired wine and people thought it was incredible. And it was American. American.

Ugh, so annoying. Charles's famous wine cost $13.50 in the 80s, which is around $40 today. Though he had years of being known as this great wine maker, Charles had a really bad couple of years. People in America stopped buying his wine, his wife filed for divorce, and then he had to declare bankruptcy. So who swoops in to save the day?

You guessed it, Fred Franzia. So Fred, he comes in and he takes over Charles Shaw Wines and takes it from like bougie name brand to super affordable real quick. He starts using grapes from lesser known areas of California like he did with that Zinfandel situation. And he ends up cutting costs

Big time. And then in 2002, Charles Shaw hit the shelves of a little grocery store chain named Trader Joe's. The bottle says it's a private label, whatever that means, you know, cool. It's got the legit Charles Shaw stamp on it. And the best of all, it's fake.

So people went nuts. But the press, they ended up dragging Fred for it, saying that he was ruining the reputation of Charles Shaw Wine, but not really, 'cause like he went bankrupt. He ruined his own name, sorry. Ooh, hot take. And not just Charles Shaw, but many people in the wine industry believe that Fred's bargain wine was making the whole industry look bad. But Fred never cared. He was getting his money. He was getting his checks. He was like, whatever.

For many years, Charles Shaw Wine was the Costco hot dog of the wine world. And it stayed $1.99.

It was only recently that the prices went up, but it's still under $5. So, I mean, that's a good deal. I can't say if it's good or bad wine. So let me know in the comment section. By 2009, 2 Buck Chuck had sold 400 million bottles. When this happened, Fred issued a statement to the press where he said, quote, "'Take that and shove it, Napa. Yeah, party.'"

So friends, where do we go from here? Wine culture today feels like so many things, very overwhelming. You have the rosé all day and it's wine o'clock somewhere. It's like people have built their entire identities around finding wine, buying wine, and drinking wine. And you know, I'm not judging. It's just kind of annoying.

We have literally no idea what's inside of a lot of those wine bottles. And you've got the whole natural wine movement now. They're organic and natural, whatever that means, you know? But I just want to know what's in it. I mean, point blank period. And I guess...

I guess that's too much to ask. My god, I'm sorry. Well, as I was wrapping up my research on this topic, you know the department I mentioned earlier that oversees wine? Well, turns out that they're making a move towards requiring labels.

Come on, you guys, get this shit together and require labels. It's going into our bodies. Get it together. Get it to fucking gather. I'll print the bottles. I got a printer. I'll do it. Some wine experts think we're going to get nutrition labels for wine by the end of this year. And then ingredient lists might be coming sometime in 2024, they say. I'm not holding my breath. But until then, really rolling the dice with them fish bladders and sawdust. So...

Cheers to that buttercup. Well, everyone, thank you for learning with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions to get the whole story because you deserve that. I'd love to hear your reactions to today's episode. So make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can follow along and join me over on my YouTube where you can actually watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, you can also, I don't know, hang out and maybe catch my murder mystery and make up.

Well, I hope you have a great rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you next week.

Goodbye. Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian High, Junia McNeely from 3Arts, Kevin Grush, and Matt Enloe from Maiden Network. A big thank you to our writers, Joey Scavuzzo, Katie Burris, Allison Filobos, and me, Bailey Sarian. Writer's assistant, Casey Colton.

Production lead, Brian Jaggers. Research provided by the Dark History Researcher team. A special thank you to our expert, Alice Faring. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. That's me. Hi. Okay, bye.