“You tell me why someone’s bottle is worth $80 and mine’s worth $2,” Fred Franzia said of the wine brand, in 2009. “Do you get 40 times the pleasure from it?” NewYorkerArchive
In 1994, Franzia pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud with Bronco by falsely labelling grapes. He paid a five-hundred-thousand-dollar fine; the company pleaded no contest and paid a two-and-a-half-million-dollar fine. According to the grand-jury indictment, during the late eighties and early nineties Franzia and Bronco misrepresented about a million gallons of wine worth some five million dollars on the bulk market.
Franzia looked up to interrupt him. “If we do anything, we own at least fifty per cent. Get that clear in your head. That trademark will be jointly owned. If it runs, it runs. If it doesn’t, we talk about it.” He returned to the mail, scrawling notes with a dull pencil across some pages, and dramatically tearing in half those he didn’t need: C.E.O. performance art. Finally, he seemed to notice his visitor again. “O.K., we’re not going to issue camping rights,” he said.
Just then, a Bronco winemaker poked his head in and said that he had samples from Kirkland Ranch, a large Napa Valley winery that was in bankruptcy proceedings. “They’re just bitin’ the dust, one by one,” Franzia said. “Two hundred and fifty thousand for the trademarks and the labels. Boom, we strike. Clean it right out. We can buy their bulk wine for two dollars a gallon, and put it in the red-wine tank. We’re in tough economic conditions. The strong will survive and the dumb ones will die.
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