Napa Valley Winery That Made “Two Buck Chuck” Lists for $35M

The vineyard once known for Trader Joe’s “Two Buck Chuck” has hit the Napa Valley winery market for a mucky-muck $35 million.

The 43-acre Benessere Vineyards, where Charles Shaw produced his first wines and has since become a boutique winery, has listed with a 6,300-square-foot home at 1010 Big Tree Road in St. Helena, the Sacramento Bee and San Francisco Chronicle reported. The seller is the Benish family.

It was 1974 when Shaw opened his Charles Shaw Winery, first known for producing Beaujolais-style Gamay wines, which went belly up in 1990.

Fred Franzia, the vintner behind Bronco Wine, bought the Charles Shaw brand and turned it into the budget wine that sold for $1.99 a bottle at Trader Joe’s — famously known as Two Buck Chuck. The Charles Shaw merlot now sells for $3.49.

The upscale Benessere Vineyards includes an eight-bedroom, nine-bathroom house at the end of a country lane surrounded by vineyards.

“Encompassed by vineyards and the organic landscape of the Napa River, the agrarian setting is unrivaled, offering everything wine country often promises, but rarely delivers,” the listing by Sotheby’s International Realty states.

“The offering consists of a substantial vineyard component, winery and public tasting room operations and multiple residences which embody a classic Napa Valley style.”

A buyer can continue winery operations by relocating an existing wine brand or setting up a new one, according to the listing,

The listing notes that the winery’s entitlements are “pre-WDO,” referring to Napa County’s 1990 Winery Definition Ordinance. Permits before that date tend to be less restrictive than what would be issued now, according to the Chronicle.

The original Charles Shaw winery no longer exists. After the Charles Shaw winery went bankrupt, the property — but not the brand — was bought by the Benish family, who later renamed it Benessere Vineyards.

The late John and Ellen Benish, natives of Chicago, bought the vineyard in 1994 for $1.53 million.

They launched Benessere Vineyards, Italian for “well being,” with a focus on Italian grape varieties like Sangiovese, Vermentino and Pinot Grigio. The Benessere wines now sell for up to $95 a bottle. Vineyard co-founder John Benish died in 2018.

“We are a small, family-owned boutique winery specializing in Italian varietals made in the heart of Napa Valley, where the soil is ideal for growing these types of grapes,” according to the Benessere Vineyards website.

Brokers Jamie Spratling and Kevin McDonald of Sotheby’s International Realty – St. Helena Brokerage hold the listing.

Franzia, who once declared no bottle of wine should ever cost more than $10, bought the Charles Shaw brand name in 1995, then produced it in the Central Valley from bulk wine, not Napa Valley grapes. In 2002, he began selling the budget Charles Shaw wines at Trader Joe’s.

In July, TV host Ryan Seacrest put his 40-acre spread in Napa Valley’s St. Helena up for sale at $22 million.

— Dana Bartholomew