On the Charles Shaw aka "two buck chuck", it's famous because it won an award when it was $2. How this brand works is buying the unwanted discard grapes from other wineries and then having them bottled. There is no consistency. Most years it is not very good. But, there was a glut of grapes on the market some years ago which allowed Charles Shaw to buy good quality grapes at a very low clearance price, which created a brief bubble where they had good wine for cheap. Since then they have been buying, as they do, the low priced, and low quality grapes, and the wine is not that great. It also has not been priced at $2 for some time. But, a lot of people know the story that "two buck chuck won some sort of award" and so they buy it and talk about how good it is even though it's pretty bad. Well good for them, they are happy and not spending a lot. I fail to see that that is a problem.

So when the journalists in 2013 trot it out and claim it is an award winning wine for $2, that shows instantly the journalist knows absolutely nothing about the wine market.

Since this happens in the opening paragraph in this article, it saves a lot of time reading.