01-05-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Grocery Outlet wants to create the next Two Buck Chuck. Here's how it tastes
The prices are outrageous: $1.49 for laundry detergent; 99 cents for a box of Cheez-Its; $5.99 for a pound and a half of fish. They could only come from one Bay Area store.
Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, headquartered in Emeryville, has always done brisk business with sub-$10 wine. But the chain never had a wine of its own until April, when it unveiled Second Cheapest Wine. The initial lineup consists of five bottles — a Sonoma Sauvignon Blanc, a Sonoma Chardonnay, a Napa Chardonnay, a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and an Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon — all $4.99.
Before launching Second Cheapest Wine, Grocery Outlet was already in the midst of a private label tear, releasing proprietary versions of pasta sauce, bottled water and other products for the first time. Stephen Beckner, the import and private label wine buyer, knew that wine would be on the agenda eventually.
'The Second Cheapest concept fell into my lap serendipitously,' Beckner said. 'My wife and I were having a conversation one night and she said, 'Steve Beckner, you need to create the next Two Buck Chuck.''
He zeroed in on 'second cheapest wine' because the concept had been 'a viral trend for years,' Beckner said. 'You want to avoid looking cheap,' Beckner said, 'so you never want to buy the cheapest wine on a wine list or in a retail store.'
Millennials of a certain age (me) may primarily associate the term with a brilliant 2012 College Humor video. ('Outside of the cheapest, it's the cheapest.') It's recently experienced something of a revival on TikTok. Clearly, the idea endures transgenerationally.
The wine industry's current downturn has been a boon for Grocery Outlet, which works by buying excess product that suppliers are willing to part with at a steep discount. (By the way, it's always a good idea to double-check the expiration date of the store's dairy products.) 'The current climate right now is very advantageous for us,' said Beckner. 'There's an excess of wine in the marketplace.'
Because so many wineries are desperate to move inventory, Grocery Outlet was able to snatch up relatively high-quality wine at a perilously low cost. Notably, these bottles don't merely carry the California label but come from prestigious appellations like Oregon's Willamette Valley and Sonoma County's Alexander Valley. A $5 California Chardonnay is one thing, but $5 Napa Valley Chardonnay is unheard of.
What shocked me — and what really drives home the apparent panic in the marketplace — was how not bad the Second Cheapest Wines were. I was pleasantly surprised by the 2023 Sonoma Sauvignon Blanc, which was lemony and bright — if veering a touch toward the cat-pee end of the Sauv Blanc spectrum — and by the juicy, tropical Napa Chardonnay. It was remarkably lean for an inexpensive Chardonnay, which tends to get more buttery as it gets cheaper.
That's not to say there were any 100-pointers. The 2023 Sonoma County Chardonnay was all oaky flavor; the 2023 Willamette Pinot had a cherry note that I could only describe as rubbery. The 2022 Alexander Valley Cabernet had an enjoyable potpourri-esque nose, but tasted chalky and crumbly on the palate.
They are also, for the most part, literally the second cheapest wines at most Grocery Outlet locations, where the wine prices tend to bottom out at $3.99. Some stores also sell $2.99 bottles, which would make Second Cheapest Wine the third cheapest wine. However, 'we've been moving away from the $2.99 tier; $3.99 just seems to be a price category that we excel at,' Beckner said. 'Those wines just sell really well.'
But $4.99 may be the new $3.99, because Second Cheapest Wine has been flying off the shelves. The label quickly became the company's bestseller when it was introduced in early April during Grocery Outlet's annual spring wine sale (when all bottles are an additional 20% off). The Cabernet is now the top-selling Cab across Grocery Outlet, Beckner said.
Grocery Outlet may eventually create other private label wine brands, possibly even a 'premium' brand at $9.99. Beckner said that he's motivated by finding astonishing values. In a previous job, he sold Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, the world's most expensive wine. 'But the most fun I ever had was selling close-out lists — those wines that were $5, $6, $7 that just blew your mind with how good they were.'
There are plans to release an additional seven wines under the Second Cheapest label. Beckner doesn't envision any difficulties finding more wine that meets their standards. More and more wineries keep reaching out to express interest in selling their leftovers to Second Cheapest Wine.
