A wine professional’s foundational goal is to make others happy. The restaurant sommelier aims to recommend a bottle that best enhances a guest’s dining experience. The wine educator strives toward helping their clientele determine the varieties and styles they enjoy the most. The bottle shop proprietor seeks to satisfy customers by pointing them toward bottles that fit an intended mood and align with their sensibilities.
In each scenario, success comes from the wine pro setting their own preferences aside for the good of others. This noble gesture comes with a caveat: The wine they’re recommending may be a label, variety, or style that they find to be a bit overrated. They’ll still suggest the wine if they believe it will please the customer or guest, but they may not necessarily be thrilled with doing so.
With that in mind, we asked 12 wine professionals to name the wines they feel take up too much room on the hype train. The wines they chose aren’t objectively bad, of course. They’re just subjectively not for them.
The Most Overrated Wines, According to Wine Pros: Natural wine Wines in heavy bottles Chillable reds Wines that overemphasize terroir New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Big Cabernets and Cab blends as holiday gifts Sancerre Overtly funky natural wines Expensive Pinot Grigio Napa wines
“There’s a lot of stiff competition out there, like big brand California Cabernet Sauvignons and limp, insipid Sancerre, but honestly I think natural wine has had its time and would benefit from
