The article "Our Maltese mentality - the fruit/wine contradiction" (The Sunday Times, December 5) must have been written either by a Maltese winemaker or by someone with a business interest in the industry. The claims made are barefaced exaggerations. This is misplaced patriotism. They give winemakers a false sense of security in their product.

Alright, Maltese grapes are good to taste. But to declare them better than all the hundreds of different kinds of grapes that grow in the vast Mediterranean region and beyond is crazy. I suppose whoever made the claim was only joking. After all he/she was only trying to convince wine drinkers that our 'superior' grapes could not but produce better wines than all the other wine-producing countries.

This is not a question of a colonial mentality. All wine connoisseurs can distinguish excellent, good or bad wine, irrespective of the quality of the grape used. It is not only grapes that make good wine.

Our overpriced 'renowned' wines may perhaps make an impact on tourists coming from countries with a scant wine culture. But, for goodness' sake, let us not even dream that our wines can compete with, or are even better than wines of comparable price coming from renowned wine-producing countries.

I hear you say that there are bad foreign wines. Of course there are. There are also excellent foreign wines which carry a high price tag. However these are not the wines under scrutiny here