This is the response I received from a good friend that I e-mailed this Editorial to. While I don't agree 100% with him, he makes some very valid points in favor of CA vino:

"Boy, does this commentator feel full of herself. I resent the implied message that the only discerning palates are those that would agree with her sense of taste.

After the initial reaction passed I had to admit I have passed on a number of wines when their taste and body took on those of a vintage Thunderbird enhanced with both alcohol and food coloring. As for myself, I enjoy a full bodied and potent offering (Black Chicken comes to mind).

I have never gone in for the earthy types this author yearns. I think I spent too many years mowing lawns and turning soil amendments to want that same essence in my beverage of choice.

My generation was schooled in facilities still equipped with blackboards. If you ever had to clean the blackboards and erasers you would have inhaled a lifetime's measure of all the chalk and lime dust a body should have to endure.

Escape from breathing in the must and mold of decaying vegetable matter while working the soils of your garden and lawns is to be found in the fruity essence of a good California North Coastal valley vintage. If you want more earthy impacts I suggest the author should work in a truck load of mulch (delivered from a local mushroom farm) into her garden plot."

Lee Copelenad