two buck chuck wins double golds!

Charles Shaw 2005 Chardonnay aka Two Buck Chuck for its $1.99/bottle price has won double gold at the California State Fair this year and named best California Chardonnay! We actually bought a couple of boxes for the hell of it and tried it out. We've bought single bottles that cost more than a case of Chuck. I was kind of skeptical, but it's actually a lovely wine. It's not the buttery oaky variety as it is more the crisp fruity chardonnay. The flavor does fill your mouth from front to back with a good weight to it. I found myself easily sipping through a glass of it.

Two buck chuck is a rather hit or miss wine even from year to year. And I've often skipped it as there are plenty of bargain wines of more reliable quality on the shelves. Grant it, it takes its licks as the cheap wine, about as close to the boxed variety as you can get, it does serve a purpose of selling a wine at a price range that everyone just has to try at least once. There will always be the people who drink Bud Light, but then there are the people who try Bud Light then ask themselves, there has to be something better.

I've come to realize everyone has a level in which they like to be at. How can I complain about Charles Shaw for filling that niche of people that want a Bud Light priced wine? That's just business. And while I have to fight the bias of wanting to avoid drinking two buck chuck because it's not "real" wine, I do always have to keep myself open to the possibility that hey anyone can get lucky.

Lately I've been doing alot of comparing and contrasting of photographers/photography, wines and wineries, martial arts and artists, and what often makes one better than the other is the ability to increase their odds of being successful at what they are executing. That no matter the field one is in, less is more. Like the master chess players, what separates them from beginners is that beginners waste time exploring every single option, while the master chess players know which paths are worth exploring. So it's not to say that a beginner might get lucky and pick a good move, it's just that the master chess players have the experience and knowledge to improve their chances of picking a good move. The master photographer who understands lighting, positioning and their equipment need only click a few times to get the right shot, but still spontaneously takes photos just in case they get lucky while in the meantime they are constantly improving their skill so they can get lucky more often.