The film version of Peter Mayle's "A Good Year" is being treated like a contaminated wine by many of the nation's movie critics, but Mayle nonetheless is doing his darnedest to stir up interest in it.

Over the weekend, an essay by Mayle on the pretentious and often fatuous rituals surrounding wine appreciation appeared in The Observer in the United Kingdom. The affectations and jargon of supercilious wine enthusiasts is an easy target that has been ridiculed before and no doubt will be again, and a glib Mayle has entertaining fun with the subject, though he doesn't bring any really fresh insight to the topic.

At the end of the piece, however, he tacks on a list of his 10 most memorable wines, with a brief comment on each that however oblique makes for more provocative reading than the essay itself.