I am not from Long Island, nor am I from either of the islands of that far off place whose Marlborough sauvignon wine you stated as overrated. However, I am a little puzzled, not to say queerly infuriated with your dismissal of one of the greatest wine revolutions in history.

That revolution? a)That more people should be interested in wine and b) that more countries and people should be involved in the making of it.

Countries such as Australia and New Zealand do produce some of the finest wines in the world and per dollar, in my experience, have always offered better value than the Old World. The Old World wines do have their kings and queens; untouchable premier and deuxieme crus, but no mention was made of the vastly overrated and ridiculously overpriced wines that come from manufacturers such as Rothschild and Margaux. Pitiful second-fiddle-to-the-great wines they produce, charging £50 ($100) a bottle merely for the name. THAT is the greatest example of hopeless overestimation and Old World self-importance there is.

I have a friend, who knows precious little about wine, who dismisses the New World merely because there is more cache in a French name. Such people are unwilling to try fantastic wines from down under and articles such as yours perpetuate their blinkered approach to buying wine. The friend in question, when I asked her what wine she wished I would bring to the dinner party she was giving, said 'Anything as long as its French'. 100 years ago, such a comment would have been a sign of taste, but now, I am afraid it is a sign of a complete lack of knowledge. Have you tried Mount Difficulty Pinot Noir? Or Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc? Have you had a Henschke Riesling or Sauvignon? Have you sipped a Mountford Pinot Noir or a Spy Valley Sauvignon Blanc? I doubt you have and the reason for my candour and my doubt is that you described the aforementioned sauvignon blanc (which you very loosely lumped together as Marlborough - Marlborough has many different sides) as cats piss. Not even the AA Gill of wines would use such a juvenile and dismissive turn of phrase.

I am a great fan of wine, and I will give each wine that has something to offer its due. However, you are a wine snob; someone ill prepared to do such a thing. Being a wine snob does not make a wine critic, nor does it make your palate any better than the homeless oik a mile down the road; he refuses to drink anything other than hard alcohol, you seem to be close-minded to almost anything new and exciting.

Chill out Winston...She's just telling you what she likes....what the hell is so wrong with that? jeesh....

I thought the righteous -- Alice, Lyle Fass and friends -- had officially reclaimed the term "wine snob".

Winston writes a love letter.

I forgot to answer the question at the end of past...

I think every "cru"-designated wine (not that many) that I've ever tasted is overrated.

I think ageing wine is overrated (and boring).

I think wine assessment divorced from the dinner table is way overrated.

I think light-bodied wines are underrated.

I think good wine glasses are underrated.

I think pulling out and opening a serviceable Chinon with dinner is way underrated.

Alice, I love your blog! Your frankness and humor brightens my day.

Hi Alice,
I too am a fan of natural wines and really enjoy reading your blog. As far as the most overrated Ca. wine I've tasted recently was Heidi Barrett's "Amuse Bouche". I was actually horrified, to be blunt..I was looking forward to having the opportunity to taste it..I was with a group of knowledgeable wine people to sat the least..my friend and I tasted, looked at each other..it was absolutely, without a doubt, the worst wine..so bad that unfortunately I can't forget it...chocolate yeast? Yech..

to alice: you're wonderful and deliciously irritating in your steadfast chutzpah. i think i learn quite a lot from you. would someone dare to call you the n. mailer of the wine world? i may...(glad you're not dead, btw!)

to marcus: aging wines is definitely not overrated. there are characteristics derived that cannot be achieved any other way. otherwise i'm mostly nodding and smiling at your comments.

to winston: that incredibly quirky name, is it your contrivance or your parents? i'm sorry for what you must endure upon introduction! while you are a charming throwback of a dandy, struggling for civility in the 21st century, the conceit (read literary first, other readings follow) appears not to translate too well here where you're apparently a bit out of your ken. and finally, as to your accusation of alice's snobbery...(after reading your blog) what's that old saying about pots and kettles?

After reading your entry here, and the explantations in Lenn's comments, you have more than made your case. Though I thought your comments in the magazine article were brisk, I know all too well the power of the editorial hand (having been in that position myself). I think there have to be a couple great wines on Long Island, but overall, I haven't found anything that has really impressed me. There has to be *something* to them that's causing the wines to get all this attention (it couldn't just be money and affluence, could it?). At any rate, I appreciate your thoughts on the subject. I'll continue to try LI wines, hoping to be convinced. And if nothing else, time will tell if they're overrated or not.

If there's one wine I consider overrated, it's the mutant strand known as ice wine. All of it.

Sometimes it's delicious, and it's hard to do really well. But so is a pulled pork sandwich, and nobody has the gall to charge $60 for that.

I am just recovering from my jetlag but...Alice, my crazy redheaded wine bitch [your programmer's term], you are absolutely on the money here. I don't mean to incur anybody's wrath but...if you want decent American alternatives to European wines, at reasonable prices, head for Virginia. "Lifestyle choice" indeed.

Yes, we know you're dogmatic and wildly opinionated, but as a wine-biz friend and I were saying today, "We love Alice's blog! It's so real!"

And Asimov reads you all the time too. Girl, you in mad good company.

So going from NYC to Virginia now causes jetlag?

Mr.Chesterfield.
You, evidently, have not really read Alice's blog yet, have not grasped the issues of the wine world that she dedicates her time to, which are themselves but a symbolic microcosm of much farming and consumerism. You might consider yourself lucky that she did not counter-comment, as your erroneous assumptions render you rather a sitting duck this time around.

Your two pronged 'revolution' is not (to my knowledge) really considered by those in the natural wine world. However, the thought processes, working practices and chemicals/additives behind the actual revolution that is interventionist applied science for profit motive, are not pretty. All in order to make these contemporary/commodity wines that merely APPEAR pretty. It is this that concerns us. We are collectively lucky someone is writing about it while others rest their weary heads - in the sand. Especially, and regrettably given his power, Parker.

Who is to responsible for the status quo? The producer? The middle man? The market? The consumer? Government? The press? Did you hear of mad cow disease, perchance?

It is admirable that you ‘give each wine… its due’. In Anglo Saxon wine cutlure this conventionally blindly means consideration in the glass alone. Instead, may I humbly suggest you read the blog more deeply, consider Alice’s questioning, quiz merchants and producers yourself, consider what their answers might indicate. Maybe try some of the wines she recommends, as by now you may have established that they are worthy of your attention as a consumer. For the Italians have a concept of querying franchezza before tasting, and Nicholas Joly wrote ‘before a wine can be considered good, it must be true.’

Then again, you might be pro-GMO, pesticides and herbicides, artificial flavourings and colour, artificial acidity alcohol tannin and mouthfeel, oak tree derivatives: this brave new, near ubiquitous, world of wine, that hides behind blank labels and passive consumption.

So how did you get to her site? Why comment? Did you get this far to just rejoin the mainstream? (‘Only dead fish always follows the current’.)

Ask yourself what is better: Cloudy Bay or Clos Roche Blanche? Virtually blank labels or ingredients listed? Local produce or many wine-miles? Instant upfront pleasure, or deep meaningful relationship? Selected yeast or natural ferment? Lies or truth? Fast food or Slow?

For baked beans do not bring people to the joy of garbanzos, just as the three tenors only briefly increased opera sales, and lemonade has not increased the planting of lemon groves. The great beers of the world or organic unpasteurised milk give more true, honest flavours complexity and food-friendliness, value for money than Mouton Cadet, Lindemans Bin 65, Blue Nun, Moet et al. These brands take a lot more than they give, comparing true costs versus real pleasure.

Your New World examples may be important domestically, but if the vines are clonal, yeast selected, must temperature controlled, acidity regulated, oak new, then they are limited. Compared to a full expression of what natural wine can be, they are just thinking about possibly starting to oneday make real wine. For they are usually made to the same formulae as the brands, just by individuals rather than corporations.

And in the unlikely event that Alice ever recommends a contemporary bottling of a first or second growth claret, their second-wines, we should check that's it's not April 1st before reading on. For that would prove REALLY interesting - hopefully for you too if you stick around the scene - as most of these are 'untouchable' as you say, but only in the saddest sense.

Over-rated wines. To list 10, one doesn't have to leave any of:
-Pauillac, Chablis, St.Helena, Marlborough, Sancerre, Barossa, Chianti, Reims
-the stables of Rolland, de Grazia, Cotarella
-the top lists of the Spectator, Advocate, Gambero Rosso, RVF
-probably, most all Michelin star level restaurants and 'high end' wine stores

For me, the worst are those most blindly followed by the public, either many years after their decline, or where they never even got there: they falsely occupy peoples' memory and dilute their buying decisions, prejudicing
wines of real merit. e.g., Baron de L, Cloudy Bay SB, Dom Perignon, Mouton, Gaja, L'Ermita, Pingus, Montebello, Dominique Laurent, Allegrini Amarone, Dom.de Chevalier blanc, etc. The more passionately they were once suckled, the harder it is to wean oneself off, no?

While I think you and everyone have the right to make these lists and express your opinions. I feel as a "wine expert" you also have an obligation to be careful of what you flippantly toss out there. To paint with such a wide brush as to discredit a whole growing region or country is just irresponsible. I am sure it is popular to say that Australian wine is over rated and the wine are only monolithic. When one really thinks about it there are plenty of fine artisan wine producers out there that make a style different then the one you say are overrated. The problem is the reader lumps them all wines created from this review together. In a publication like Men's Style where one must take the premise that the reader may or may not have wine knowledge this type of statement is just plain wrong. Had you sited specific wines and said this is over rated or this is overrated as you did with say Screaming Eagle. I have no issue with that. This is your opinion and you have a right to it. Your comments about Australia, New Zealand South America and Long Island are frivolous and hurtful. It is easy to be controversial and negative it is much harder to be accurate and thoughtful.

Phil:
Thanks so much for your comment.

A few things come to mind here.

Say for example you make your living off of writing and you are offered this assignment. You are not offered an assignment--the kind I think you are suggesting---and I would be very happy to write--- about the best wines in the world, but which ones are overrated. Each entry has to be 75 words. You happen to actually have an opinion about the regions. What would you do?

Secondly, put forth your argument and apply it to the 100=point score, which is the method most of the world uses. Now, you tell me which is fairer? My overrated (which is PURELY my opinion) or a number?

I am sure I hurt some egos and there have been several attempts to hurt mine. Have a strong opinion and you'll get knocked down. Mr. Parker calls Rioja overrated. Mr. Parker dislikes red wines from the Loire. Who gives him a hard time?
If I caused some readers to ponder their choices, that's a good thing in my book. I doubt, however, someone who previously decided they love Australian shiraz or NZ sauvignon blanc are going to change their mind. However, they might take some of the alternative suggestions and discover a whole other world. And, if that's the case I am very happy.

So, if YOU were given this assignment and you accepted, what would be your TEN?

While I accept the fact you need to make a living and you are paid to write. I do not think that precludes you from thoughtful and insiteful content. I must still contend that it is irresponsible for you or any wine person in a position of authority to make such wide spread statements. while I am not a huge fan of Mr Parker nor the 100 point system I do not think i used either in my comment about this list. I am sure there are many wines coming from many regions that are overrated and not worth the attention and money they are getting. But, in the effort to expose these wines you are willing to condemn great producers that take the time and effort to create wines of note and soul I find that wrong. If it causes a reader to pass by a great wine experience because they have not gone beyond this sweeping list that can not make you happy? However if it does then this is a whole different situation. We can agree to disagree but as I recently heard "the most average piece of junk has more soul and value to it then the criticism deeming it junk"

Had this been my assignment I would have list 10 names and a blurb as to why so here it goes (all rights reserved)

10. Mollydooker Over scored and under delivering. Big in fruit small in depth.

9. Cakebread Chardonnay it continues to be an oaky buttery glass that destroys any link to the fruit from where it came.

8. AP Vin Pinot Noir Pinot noway!!! what have they added to get it to taste like syrah?

7. Screaming Eagle New owners watch and see the soul will be bled out of this. the last ones to fire Heidi was Dalle Lama no no aw I can't remember.

6. 2005 domaine Dujac No question a great winery that ofer some fantastic wines but often you end up with the lesser quality Neg stuff that is just a money river for this lable

5 2 buck chuck it still cost too much

4. Domaine Zind Humbrecht Gewurztraminer Clos Windsbuhl.

3. I agree with you Seasmoke for all the same reasons.

2. Silver Oak Cabernet Come on so much oak the fruit will never come out I just do get it.

1. Cos Du Pape CDP No question A great wine but in this field they do not deserve this much attention and Pricing

Now I am sure there will be many that disagree with my list but no one will this I hate Noon wines or they are not worthy of being tried and no one will mistake Domaine Leroy as a lesser quality wine. The point is this is MY opinoin of these wines. if someone does not know of these wines ok. I just think by stating regions or countries you do yourself and readership a disservice.

One last thought. Saying you did it for the money is ofet linked to I was just following orders. Also my mother always said I do not care what johnny is doing that is for his mother to take care of I am your mother and you will behave. Saying no bust Mr. Parker for his thoughts or writing is not a vaild point I was assessing your artical not his and hopefully his readership will take him to task when he makes any errors. This was about something you wrote and I read. I have not read much of Mr Parker outside of his Wine Advocate. Thanks for your time and your response