Fred Franzia

Fred Thomas Franzia (May 24, 1943 – September 13, 2022) was an American winemaker. He was a co-founder and CEO of the Bronco Wine Company, the producer of the Charles Shaw brand, better known as "Two-Buck Chuck".

Early life Fred Franzia was born and raised in Modesto, California, into a family with a long tradition of winemaking. His Italian immigrant grandparents, Giuseppe and Teresa Franzia, started a winery in 1910. In 1949 Giuseppe and Teresa's children, including Fred's father Joseph, took over the family business, naming it Franzia Brothers Winery. They were enormously popular, selling more than a billion bottles by 2018.

Franzia was a strong believer that wine should "be enjoyed and consumed on every American table". To that end he wanted wine to be affordable, saying that a person should not have to pay more than $10 for a bottle. "Two-Buck Chuck" was often the first wine purchased by newcomers to the wine scene, and is credited with demystifying wine for American consumers – what one source called "the unlikely democratization of a historically snobby industry." He died at the age of 79 at his home in Denair, California, near Modesto.