Can a wine be too popular for its own good? Apparently so. Exhibit A: pinot grigio from Italy.

The question arose because I wanted to prove a point. As with several other highly popular wines, pinot grigio, the best-grossing imported white wine, according to Nielsen, is barely tolerated by many of those whose job is to sell it. It is regularly skewered under the gimlet eyes of dedicated sommeliers who grouse that consumers buy so much of a wine they themselves cannot abide.

I’ve seen it often. The wines that consumers order without consideration — Sancerre, merlot and so on — earn a special sort of contempt. It’s not so much that sommeliers are being snobbish or inhospitable. After all, if a restaurant only cared about selling what most consumers want, you would see even more pouring tankers of pinot grigio with salmon and boneless chicken breasts.

Most sommeliers care deeply about wine, and they are eager to inspire others to embrace the bottles that thrill them. When consumers reject their entreaties and essentially choose not to be mindful of what they drink, the sommeliers take it out on the wine, like chefs whose brilliant creations are ignored in favor of farmed salmon, again.

I understand how sommeliers feel, but my reaction has always been, get over it. Nobody’s obliged to drink as you would like. Just because sommeliers are annoyed with consumers who default to Sancerre does not mean that Sancerre is bad. It just means that the sommeliers must find another tactic to stimulate more adventurous drinking, and accept gracefully when consumers have other priorities.