From the VILLAGE VOICE 'TAKE 6' poll:
When Mr. Incredible wailed about "celebrating mediocrity," it was hard not to think of the year's most hallowed schlub wet dream, Sideways. Seen from a bird's-eye view, it's a forgivable favorite for self-pitying menopausal Charlie Browns—be they critics or pear-shaped civilians—hoping against all rationality that Virginia Madsen awaits on a dusk-bathed hillside, ready to get drunk and screw. MICHAEL ATKINSON.
Sideways' bourgeois bachelor jaunt through wine country has a golf ball for a heart and pinot—possibly even merlot—where its blood should be. LAURA SINAGRA
Sideways is like the pilot for a softball dramedy on HBO—a cuddle-bug, schlumpy-guy Sex and the Boonies. For a guy who's always orating publicly about the civic virtue of '70s movies, why did Alexander Payne take as his visual and narrative inspiration Same Time, Next Year and Max Dugan Returns? MATTHEW WILDER
However....
Of all the year's baffling phenomena, the anti-Sideways backlash was among the most preposterous. Apparently the fact that there's nothing to dislike is enough to make some people dislike it. SAM ADAMS
CHARLES TAYLOR, SALON.COM:

Alexander Payne's new movie, Sideways, makes you feel like you're trapped at dinner with a wiseass who's trying to convince you what a sensitive guy he is.
http://www.villagevoice.com/specials.../comments1.php

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/sideways