Why wine gets a bad rap

My interest in wine is a relatively recent one, and was spurred somewhat by George M. Taber’s Judgment of Paris, which deserves its own review, perhaps. A recent random grab from the library is red, white, and drunk all over by Natalie MacLean, which is making me consider a full-time return to beer.
One of the fundamental criticisms of wine is it own self-regard and preciousness, which MacLean addresses in her introduction. Yet, her own book is a mess of overwrought wine-hooey. And the grammatical devices – well. Let’s just say that it’s like Rip Taylor is spastically tossing ill-conceived simile confetti at a Shriners’ parade celebrating self-importance and melodrama. You get the idea.
Annoying writing is an easy target, and there’s plenty of fodder here. But why didn’t she just post a compilation of her best grammatical gymnastics on the web and share the worthy stories that reside between them in her book? Better yet, this book is a series of articles at best; each of them would have been interesting if uninterrupted by the sap. To wit, verbatim and in full length for affect:

First, tasting the 2003 Nuits-St-Georges, then the 2002 Romanée-St-Vivant. Send the children away.

Fine red burgundy is said to enter the mouth like a peacock’s tail: narrowly at first, then fanning out unexpected across the palate, with flashy aromas of raspberries, leather, sandalwood, smoke, burning autumn leaves, and earthy truffles…The wine’s suppleness feels as though unseen hands pull a velvet dress over my head and down over my breasts and hips, until the hem brushes my thighs. By now, my tasting notes have become contented purring noises.

Yet as I swirl it around, the aromas seem to pull me headfirst into the glass, as though I’m drawn by gravity through layers of timeworn soil—the earth’s power to reclaim all that belongs to her.

Then, similes are like when two things are similar…

The earth between the vines is covered with tractor marks under a dusting of snow, compressed as though one of those evil Star Wars machines has rolled through.

But the vines Eduardo planted flourish with new life, their leaves fluttering in the light September breeze like marching bands wearing floppy, green-tasseled hats.

As we walk through the rows, the baked jagged clay collapses beneath my sandals like meringue, sending puffs of dust up between my toes.

And now, breathless commentary about…plants, dirt, sunshine.

The rich dirt has a voluptuous savory-sweet aroma. I have a strange craving to eat it. I can almost feel the ground beneath me seething with microorganisms groping in the dark.

The vine roots extend their gnarled fingers blindly down into the soil, whispering reproduce, reproduce, reproduce.

At first, I feel like a hero returning to a hometown parade: leafy, green vines reach down in front of me on either side, like well-wishers wanting to shake my hand.

Every half hour or so, I head back to Walsh’s truck and we plunge our hands into the pails to squish the grapes like ink-stained laundry. Manic flies, their diaphanous wings glowing like cobalt-stained glass in the sun, take suicide dives into the sweet mess.

…we emerge from the warehouse blinking in the extravagant light of a California evening, the kind of honey-gold rays that pour through the window in a Vermeer painting.

The darkening fields of grapes are now ghostly line drawings, shadows sketched in a hurry, to be painted into oils tomorrow morning.

Why make readers roll their eyes about the subject? Ink stained laundry...?
Good wine tastes and smells delicious. The people who make it are (often) to be admired. There is much beauty in the geography, history, culture, etc. of winemaking. And, perhaps most importantly, wine gives you a really fine buzz if done correctly. That’s it! Why is it not OK to say that vineyards can be a dusty hot mess? If you’re so tempted to eat the soil then do it—seriously. Tell me how those microorganisms taste while they’re groping. But no, it’s always easy to write such flighty nonsense when you don’t appear to really mean it.
A competent book reviewer would also detail how often and unnecessarily the author inserts herself in what should be a very basic and interesting story. Regardless, I plan to ignore this kind of fluff and read The Wine Offensive.