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The Wenzel Grande is Discontinued as of Spring 2019
REASONS TO BUY
Warm
Plush
Comfortable
Roomy
Rugged exterior lining
Soft flannel interior
Doubles as a quilt
Inexpensive
REASONS TO AVOID
Heavy and bulky
Not appropriate for warm or wet weather
Slightly difficult to roll up
We're not going to beat around the bush. The Wenzel Grande is not necessarily sleek and stylish. It's not petite and well-mannered. This bag is big-boned, in your face, and rugged. Above all, it's warmer than any bag we tested, and we believe its thick, overstuffed insulation and soft flannel interior is the coziest on the market. This bag isn't about fanfare. It's about function. And what it may lack in features, we feel it makes up for in warmth and comfort…all at an incredibly reasonable price. For these reasons and more, our testers, hands-down, have selected the Wenzel Grande as this year's Editors' Choice Award for the second consecutive year.
Warning: People have been known to slip into this bag and never want to leave.
Our Analysis and Test Results
Warmth accounted for 35 percent of each bag's overall score, followed by comfort (25 percent), features (25 percent) and packed size (15 percent). When we tallied the results, the Grande's fantastic warmth and incredible comfort resulted in it receiving our overall highest score again this year.
Performance Comparison
In our opinion, the Grande leads the pack in terms of overall comfort, incredible warmth, cost, and quality. And it's a lot of fun to jump on.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
Warmth
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we are going to say it just one more time: the Grande is the warmest bag we slept in during our testing!
And just like our “broken record” lead-in sentence, this bag is old-school. It's also rugged — with just a hint of get-the-job-done-lumberjack-tough-guy attitude. Scoring well in warmth, this bag kept us warm from head to toe. From our ice test to our laser thermometer readings, this bag's 6.5 pounds of Insul-Therm insulation passed the tests with flying colors.
After leaving the bags outside to chill for hours, we crawled inside each and waited to warm up. Then we measured the interior temps with a laser thermometer. The Wenzel Grande won with an internal temp of 90 degrees.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
We spent a night in Bryce Canyon National Park in the back of a pick-up truck with close-to-freezing temps and stayed toasty all night in the Grande. Although this bag doesn't come with zipper draft tubes, its overstuffed insulation and soft polycotton flannel are so thick that they completely seal off the zipper and prevents any cold air from sneaking up on your backside or your toes during a cold, mountain camp out. During our laser thermometer test, the Grande maintained the highest interior temperature at 90 degrees.
As we said, our warmth score accounts for 35 percent of each bag's overall score, which is why this big boy tipped the scales with our highest overall performance score.
This bag doesn't have a draft tube along the zipper, but the flannel-clad, 6.5-pounds of Insul-Therm insulation bulges out to create its own draft tube.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
Comfort
Coming in as the third-largest bag we tested, the Grande earned a high score in comfort. Its spacious design (81 x 39 inches) — topped only by the Teton Sports Celsius XXL and the Slumberjack Country Squire — can nearly swallow a tired camper whole. Additionally, its smooth, soft, flannel lining is easy on the skin and allows for all of the tossing and turning that comes with sleeping away from home.
One of our comfort tests included spending a bunch of time laying in this bag directly on a hard-packed, gravel road. We felt this was the easiest way to get a true feel for how comfy these bags actually are. None of the bags we tested even came close to the comfort we experienced in the Wenzel's naturally thick design.
Not only is this bag comfortable even on bare ground, its rough exterior shell and its spacious design make it a perfect make-shift picnic blanket.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
When we considered the combination of the Grande's thick insulation, its soft flannel lining and its tough, 8-ounce cotton exterior, we found that the bag is quite comfortable even on bare rock. We even dozed off a little during our test, and can honestly say that, with a little bit of patience and imagination, we feel we could sleep directly on hard rock in this bag and almost think we were lying on a sleeping pad. Ok, we probably would want to be tired too.
We found the Wenzel Grande (ground cloth) to offer the most padding and comfort of all the bags we tested. If it were possible for a bag to have too much padding, this one would take the cake!
Credit: Jason Wanlass
Features
The Grande lands somewhere in the middle of the pack when it comes to features.
While the bag lacks features like an interior pocket, shoulder baffles, a draft tube, and a lifetime warranty, it does offer outstanding craftsmanship, a hearty Velcro closure tab above the zipper, and an amazing ability to double as a picnic ground cover or quilt (thanks to its rugged exterior and green, plaid interior that hides the dirt). The Grande is also made in the USA and comes with a limited 10-year warranty.
The Grande's 8oz. Cotton Exterior is tough and has the perfect hue: Dirt! This makes it perfect for unzipping and laying flat for a picnic.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
Although it's hard to expect a cotton bag to repel water, we were disappointed with the Grande's performance in our water resistance test. We also found this to be a problem with the Slumberjack CountrySquire, which is made with natural fibers as well.
During our water-resistance test, 16oz. of water penetrated the Grande's exterior in less than 2 minutes, a common drawback for natural fiber bags.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
One thing we did notice during our water test, is although all the water did penetrate the exterior lining of the Grande relatively easy, the water never soaked all the way through to the ground. The interior of the bag was relatively dry as well. The Grande is so thick that insulation completely absorbed the water. As for the Slumberjack and the Coleman Brazos, the water passed all the way through the bag to the ground.
The Grande has a lot of bulk, but for a bag of its size, we feel it fits relatively easily into its stuff sack.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
Packed Size
If you're looking for petite and well-mannered, this is not your bag. The Grande is big, bulky, heavy, and a tiny bit hard to roll up or stuff into its storage bag. (We're fine making these concessions in exchange for high comfort scores.) When it comes to packed size, the Grande comes in next to last in terms of compactness, followed by the massive Slumberjack Country Squire.
You'll notice that even though the Slumberjack is bigger than the Wenzel, we gave the Wenzel the lowest score for packed size than all of the bags. This is because the Wenzel is a little more difficult to roll up and stow than the Slumberjack.
Best Applications
The Grande is a tough, no-frills, get-down-to-brass-tacks, extra large, furnace of a sleeping bag that is built to withstand years and years of chilly nights. This bag is ideal for trailer, tent, truck-bed or right-on-the-ground camping.
The Grande's perfect balance of price, warmth, comfort durability and attitude is why we named it our Editors' Choice.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
Value
We can't say enough about this bag's value. Coming in at under $90, we feel the Grande focuses on what's important: warmth and comfort. When we combined these two features with the price tag and the construction quality, it was somewhat easy for us to name it this year's Editors' Choice Winner.
The Wenzel Grande 0 is tough enough to stand the test of time (and kids) yet soft and comfortable enough to give you a great night's sleep.
Credit: Jason Wanlass
Conclusion
For the second year running, we were amazed by this bag's ability to perform at such a high level with such a relatively reasonable price tag. This Editors' Choice Award Winner doesn't have it all, but it doesn't need it. Its price, warmth, comfort, size, and construction trumps any other factor we studied.
