Discount Dynasty

The bottling company didn't last long in the wine business. In 1981, Coke of New York sold the Franzia operation and its other wine interests to the Wine Group, a privately held producer of bulk wines based in San Francisco. Today -- to Fred Franzia's chagrin, although he doesn't like talking about it -- the Franzia legacy is extolled on boxes of the Wine Group's bargain-basement "bag in a box" wines. Printed on each "Franzia" box is a warm and fuzzy retelling of Giuseppe and Teresa's story above the signature of Carlyse Franzia, Fred's cousin and the offspring of one of the brothers who sold out in 1971. She is married to Arthur Ciocca, the Wine Group's publicity-averse principal owner.

"People use the tools available to them. Let's just leave it at that," Franzia says when asked about his family's name and legacy being in the hands of a competitor. Neither is he eager to talk about what happened in the '70s. "That's over and done with. It's a nonissue," he says. "It doesn't really bother me." Others, however, offer another view. "There's no question that there was a lot of hurt and sadness with the loss [of Franzia Brothers]," Mondavi says. "It's a large part of what drives Fred. If you love this business as much as he does, you don't lose your family's century-old winemaking name without it having an impact."

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In stark contrast to the exquisitely done-up Napa facility, Bronco's sprawling operation on the edge of Ceres has all of the charm of an oil refinery. Its rows of white storage tanks, which tower above the flat countryside like giant toadstools, are capable of holding up to 80 million gallons of "juice." (That doesn't include the former Titan ICBM missile fuel tanks that Franzia acquired from military surplus and that he intends to use someday in the production of champagne.)

During harvest, trucks laden with grapes arrive at Ceres around the clock from the far reaches of Bronco's domain, strategically spaced over a distance of 200 miles, north to south, so as to stagger and prolong the ripening of grapes for harvest and enable Bronco to squeeze the most efficiency from workers and facilities. The grapes are crushed and processed and their liquid treasure placed in the tanks according to wine type, almost all of it destined for bottling in Napa.

Beneath the tanks are two climate-controlled warehouses -- one stacked with traditional oak barrels for aging wines bearing Bronco's brands, many of which sell in the $7 to $12 range; another for finished goods, including however much Charles Shaw doesn't get shipped directly from Napa to Trader Joe's stores. Joseph Franzia, Fred's brother, directs Classic Wines of California, the distribution arm, from an annex of one of the warehouses. John Franzia, their cousin, oversees production.

The trio formed Bronco (a contraction of "brothers 'n' cousin") in 1974, the year after Coke of New York's takeover of the family's namesake Ripon winery. Starting from scratch on a 40-acre site that has since mushroomed to 420 acres, the Franzias, with Fred at the helm, have built a 1,000-employee juggernaut that dwarfs anything their parents could have imagined.

But one might never guess at the scope of the operation, judging from Fred Franzia's office in a converted portable building next to the guard shack. It is separated from his cousin John's similarly austere work space by a small conference room lined with shelves on which rest bottles of the company's wines. "Nice offices don't make you money," says Franzia. "Besides, this isn't where the real action is."

Indeed, the action appears to be wherever Franzia is. Often that means tooling around vineyards in his perpetually dusty Grand Cherokee and pausing for hearty lunches at places like the Red Steer, a roast beef joint in the town of Turlock, where employees and customers alike greet him by his first name. He works seven days a week, most days arriving at the office by 5:30 a.m. and seldom finishing before 10 at night. He spends at least a day a week in Napa, although he doesn't bother keeping an office there, preferring instead to encamp in a well-appointed conference room.

It's a routine that most people would consider grueling except that Franzia makes no distinction between work and pleasure. "Work is my pleasure," he declares. "I consider myself a very lucky guy in that respect." Yet, there's been a price. He is twice divorced, once after 14 years of marriage to the mother of his five grown children (two of whom work for Bronco). A second marriage lasted five years. By his acknowledgment, he seldom socializes outside his circle of wine friends, has no time for golf, and only rarely sneaks a peek at the Giants, his favorite baseball team.

Franzia takes a break twice a year. He gathers his children and their families for a ritual beach reunion in Hawaii, and he hosts a deer-hunting camp on the Russian River for his wine-producing pals, including members of the Gallo and Mondavi clans.