Alice Feiring is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, for several years a wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 and travel columnist for Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine, and known as an advocate for "natural wine

Natural wine

Natural wine is wine made with minimal chemical and technological intervention in growing grapes and making them into wine. The term is used to distinguish such wine from organic wine...

". In addition to contributions to publications such as The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, New York Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle

thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

, LA Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, Condé Nast Traveler

Condé Nast Traveler

Condé Nast Traveler is a US magazine published by Condé Nast. It has its origins in a mailing sent out by the Diners Club club beginning in 1953, listing locations that would take the card. It began taking advertising in 1955. In order to attract more advertisers, it became a full-fledged magazine,...

and Forbes Traveler

Forbes

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

, her blog

Blog

A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

 "The Feiring Line" [formerly: "Veritas in Vino"] is considered among America's leading wine blogs, and her voice described by Mike Steinberger

Michael Steinberger

Michael Steinberger is an American author and journalist, and was the wine columnist of the internet magazine Slate from 2002 to 2011. He has been described as "one of the greatest wine writers on the planet", and to possess a "blessedly trustworthy voice and palate"...

 as part of a new wave of "real flowering of high-quality wine journalism". In 2011, Feiring was selected as Online Wine Writer of the Year by the Louis Roederer

Louis Roederer

Louis Roederer is a producer of champagne based in Reims, France. Founded in 1776, it was inherited and renamed by Louis Roederer in 1833, and is noted as the producer of the luxury champagne Cristal.-History:...

 International Wine Writer Awards.

Her first book, published in May 2008, The Battle for Wine and Love: Or How I Saved the World from Parkerization, described as "an opinionated look at the fight to preserve authenticity and diversity in wine", due to its perceived "declaration of war" against critic Robert Parker

Robert M. Parker, Jr.

Robert M. Parker, Jr. is a leading U.S. wine critic with an international influence. His wine ratings on a 100-point scale and his newsletter The Wine Advocate, with his particular stylistic preferences and notetaking vocabulary, have become very influential in American wine buying and are...

 found some controversy well before its date of release. Reviewing the book, Eric Asimov

Eric Asimov

Eric Asimov is an American wine critic for The New York Times, with articles subsequently published in the International Herald Tribune.-Biography:...

 later wrote, "Ms. Feiring is an uncompromising judge of wine and people who can no more stomach a lover’s preference for a wine she abhors than she can the presence of a microwave in her kitchen."

Feiring's critical statements against California wine

California wine

California wine has a long and continuing history, and in the late twentieth century became recognized as producing some of the world's finest wine. While wine is made in all fifty U.S. states, up to 90% of American wine is produced in the state...

 as "overblown, over-alcoholed, over-oaked, overpriced and over-manipulated" have also sparked controversy.

An article Feiring wrote for The Upgrader on Men.Style.com

Style.com

Style.com is a fashion website. It was formerly the online site for the fashion magazine Vogue and [W] W magazine featuring online versions of some of the magazine's content as well as internet-exclusive material such as event photographs and style-related articles, before Vogue developed its own...

, online site of GQ and Details

Details (magazine)

Details is an American monthly men's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications, founded in 1982. Though primarily a magazine devoted to fashion and lifestyle, Details also features reports on relevant social and political issues.-History:...

, titled "The Ten Most Overrated Wines in the World", which listed Bordeaux Garagistes

Garagistes

The garagistes refers to a group of innovative winemakers in the Bordeaux region, producing "Vins de garage", "Garage wine". A group emerged in the mid 1990s in reaction to the traditional style of red Bordeaux wine, which is highly tannic and requires long ageing in the bottle to become drinkable...

, Australian

Australian wine

The Australian Wine Industry is the fourth largest exporter of wine around the world, with 760 million litres a year to a large international export market and contributes $5.5 billion per annum to the nation's economy...

 Shiraz, Marlborough Sauvignon blanc

Sauvignon blanc

Sauvignon Blanc is a green-skinned grape variety which originates from the Bordeaux region of France. The grape most likely gets its name from the French word sauvage and blanc due to its early origins as an indigenous grape in South West France., a possible descendant of savagnin...

, Super-Tuscans, Clos de Vougeot

Clos Vougeot

Clos de Vougeot, also known as Clos Vougeot, is a wall-enclosed vineyard, a clos, in the Burgundy wine region, and an Appellation d'origine contrôlée for red wine from this vineyard. It was named for the River Vouge, which is in fact only a stream separating the village Vougeot from...

, Long Island wine

Long Island AVA

The Long Island AVA is an American Viticultural Area encompassing Nassau and Suffolk counties of New York, including the smaller offshore islands in those counties. The AVA was established in 2001, over 15 years after two smaller AVAs were created at the eastern end of Long Island...

, Albariño

Albariño

Albariño or Alvarinho is a variety of white wine grape grown in Galicia , Monção and Melgaço , where it is used to make varietal white wines.Albariño is actually the Galician name for the grape...

, Screaming Eagle

Screaming Eagle Winery and Vineyards

Screaming Eagle Winery and Vineyards is a California wine estate producing limited amounts of varietal wine; due to the small quantities produced and high prices commanded, their wines are considered cult wines...

, Sea Smoke

Sea smoke

Sea smoke, or arctic steam fog, is a cloud over the sea, which could otherwise be called fog, and is usually formed when very cold air moves over warmer water. The physics are in principle similar to lake-effect snow....

 Pinot noir

Pinot Noir

Pinot noir is a black wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. The name may also refer to wines created predominantly from Pinot noir grapes...

 and Chilean

Chilean wine

Chilean wine is wine made in the South American country of Chile. The region has a long viticultural history for a New World wine region dating to the 16th century when the Spanish conquistadors brought Vitis vinifera vines with them as they colonized the region. In the mid-19th century, French...

 Cabernet

Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Canada's Okanagan Valley to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley...

, chiefly drew response from defenders of Long Island wine.

Feiring's second book, Naked Wine: Letting Grapes Do What Comes Naturally, was published in September, 2011.

External links

• "The Feiring Line"
• "The Crush" Alice Feiring guest blog at The New York Times