Franzia is Unforgiven

I'm a fan of Fred Franzia. The guy may lack in social graces, but he's a hero for recessionary times, putting usually palatable bottles of wine in stores for $2. Many, many Americans will enjoy the simple pleasure of a bottle of wine with their dinner this weekend solely because of Fred's "Two Buck Chuck."

However, I'm glad George W. Bush did not issue him a pardon for his 1993 federal conviction for conspiracy to defraud.

What Franzia pleaded guilty to was the wine equivalent of the Black Sox throwing the World Series -- because had he done so with regularity, he would have caused consumers to doubt the truth of what is actually in those precious bottles we spend so much money for.

Franzia admitted selling lesser grapes as Zinfandel. Though his Bronco Wine Co. now uses most of its grapes to make its own wines ("Two Buck Chuck" was still several years away), this news story implies that Bronco was selling these particular grapes to another winery.

Think about it: What assurance do you have that your bottle of $10 Zinfandel actually contains Zinfandel? If it were made from a mixture of Thompson Seedless and Alicante Bouschet, would you know?

You just would assume that Zinfandel wasn't particularly interesting, which means you'd be unlikely to want to spend $20 or more for a fine one from Seghesio or Scott Harvey or Outpost or any number of other great Zin makers. This is why what Franzia did back then is so bad: unchecked, it would have undermined trust throughout the industry, not just in his wines.

Franzia did not pay a heavy price for his involvement in the scheme. Others went to prison, but he did not. His company paid a $2.5 million fine and he had to temporarily step down as Bronco's president, a punishment that I'm sure was just as effective in changing leadership as in baseball when an ejected manager is ordered out of the dugout. You think they don't have phone lines in Ceres?

The biggest penalty Franzia paid, apparently, was shame. Otherwise, he wouldn't have applied for a Presidential pardon in the first place. Sorry, Fred, but you need to bear that shame. It's appropriate.

Apparently Franzia also wants to own a gun, something federal convicts cannot. Maybe he thinks, like Will Munny, "I'm just a fella now. I ain't no different than anyone else no more."

But he's still Unforgiven.