One of the best books I ever read (and I’m a lifelong reader) was “Confessions of an Advertising Man.” It was written in 1963 by one of the original Mad Men, David Ogilvy, who started his firm (now Ogilvy & Mather in London, and OgilvyOne in New York) back in the 1950s. The reason his little book was such a good read was because it was very inspirational. Ogilvy told of how he started with nothing but a dream and built up one of the greatest advertising agencies in the world.

Ogilvy, who died in 1999, was a natural born salesman. His spirit still infuses the company, which just announced a worldwide contest, open to anyone over the age of 18: to create a short YouTube video in which you sell a red brick.

Yes, a red brick. “If you can sell a red brick, maybe you can sell anything,” a company executive was quoted in the N.Y. Times.

The winner gets a three-month job at OgilvyOne, and will help write a guide to selling in the 21st century. (The Times article mentioned that “The contest will also use other social media like Facebook and Twitter,” although it didn’t explain precisely how.)

When I read this, I was instantly reminded of A Really Goode Job [2009] and, before that, of the Rockaway deal with bloggers [2008]. (Most readers here know all about those.) Both were, of course, instances of wineries experimenting with how to use social media and engage a new generation of consumers, the former through a contest. It made me wonder if the Ogilvy people knew about them.

What’s interesting to me isn’t the fact that yet another company is having a contest to bring attention to their social media efforts. We’re used to that by now. It’s that Ogilvy decided to have the contestants sell a red brick. Why such a prosaic item and not something cool and contemporary? As a company exec explained, “the iPad does not need ‘the world’s greatest salesperson.’”

In other words, the contestants are going to have to sell the sizzle, not the steak, since, in this case, there is no steak. They will get to display sheer artistry and talent. This brings up all kinds of ideas about marketing wine. Some wines sell themselves: they get great scores, collectors lust after them, there’s a waiting list for the mailing list, and they’re home free. Other wines have to be sold. We’re seeing a lot of attempts to sell now, but wineries seem to be scrambling to find the right message, the right price point, the right strategy.

Which is why there continues to be so much interest in social media. Ogilvy execs were quoted in the Times as saying things like “the consumer [is] in control” and “the salesperson needs to get invited in.” And selling is “less about intrusion and repetition and more about engagement and evangelizing.” (Although you wouldn’t necessarily know that if you watch TV, where commercials are more intrusive and repetitive than ever.)

So everybody is jumping into social media. Think about it. When the reformists in the streets of Tehran want to talk to the world, they tweet. That’s the same reason the old regime in China wants to censor searches: so their people can’t interact with the outside world, or even each other. That’s the big picture. What about the smaller world of wine in which we live? Wineries are on notice they have to sell harder than ever before. For some, that means they actually have to learn to sell in the first place.

David Ogilvy famously said, “No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat.” It’s the old law of the jungle, and social media — no matter how revolutionary it turns out to be — isn’t going to change it.

(As in “Anything But Chardonnay”)

A friend of mine recently expressed a certain, shall we say, disdain for California Chardonnay. He used terms like “fruit bomb” and “over-oaked,” the implication being that, despite all the Burgundian bells and whistles, Cali Chard doesn’t come close to an authentic bottle of the real French stuff.

I grew emotional, as I tend to do when California wine is attacked, and wanted to leap to my state’s defense. But, in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t frame the words quite the way I wanted. As a writer, not a speechifier, I remained reticent. Now that a couple days have gone by, let me try.

As in all things aesthetic, reasonable people can disagree. You say “po-tay-to” and I say “po-tah-to”. But let me get in my two cents on why I love California Chardonnay and why I think — no, make that know that it’s the state’s greatest white wine.

We know that California can grow great Chardonnay grapes, thanks to the stainless steel, unwooded style produced by wineries such as Iron Horse, Sebastiani, Toad Hollow, Silver, Pellegrini, Valley of the Moon and others. They’ve shown us how rich and flavorful the wine can be when it’s never seen a splinter of oak. With flavors running the gamut from grapes, fresh green apples and peaches to pears, pineapples and tropical fruits, what’s not to like?

Which brings us to oak.

Okay, I’m first to admit that playing with oak is like playing with matches in a gasoline refinery. It’s dangerous. There’s a definite line between a wine that’s over-oaked and one where the oak is just right. It’s hard to define, and, like I said above, different people will come to different conclusions. For me, oak has these characteristic aromas and flavors: buttered toast, vanilla and caramel. (Usually, barrel-fermented, barrel-aged Chardonnay also will have lees influence, and that plays into the picture. And Chardonnays often are put through the malolactic fermentation, which can make them buttery and creamy. But the oak notes are as I described above.)

If the wine starts off with an over-dominating smell of buttered toast, vanilla and caramel, chances are it’s over-oaked and out of balance. That doesn’t mean it has a lot of new wood or a lot of high-char wood. All it means it that the underlying Chardonnay is unable to support the weight of the wood. (This can also be because the source of the “oak” is some ersatz cheap stuff with oak-like smells.) By the same token, a massive, ripe Chardonnay can easily sustain 100 percent new oak.

The best way to put this visually is this:

Tammy Faye Bakker, rest her soul, was and forever will be the poster child for excessive makeup. (Of course, this is no reflection on her character. I liked her, or, at least, I liked the person who came through the TV screen.) But she sure did pile on the mascara, lipstick and false eyelashes, so there was something freakishly garish about her. This is how an over-oaked and, yes, fruit-bomby California Chardonnay (and there are plenty of them) tastes to me.

Then there’s a different type of look, one I think we all can agree is beautiful and classy.

Since I happen to think that buttered toast, vanilla and caramel are pretty nice flavors, I don’t mind finding them in my Chardonnays. And when you couple those with the  fruit of a properly grown Chardonnay, you’re looking at a pretty special wine. A great, oaky California Chardonnay is Sandra Bullock in a glass.

I often use the words “flamboyant” or “hedonistic” to describe Chardonnays I like. But I think I’m always careful to add something like “balanced with crisp acidity” or “with a streak of minerals” to suggest structure and firmness. Flamboyance without structure is, well, Tammy Faye. All flash, no substance. It’s a matter of taste and style. You either have it, or you don’t.

If you concede that California is capable of great Chardonnay (not everyone will, I know), then you have to admit that the greatest is going to be a ripe, oaky Chardonnay, not an unoaked one. Is that a controversial statement? I don’t think so, although I could imagine a situation wherein a very great Chardonnay is unoaked. Greg Brewer and Marimar Torres play in that sandbox. But my feeling is that, for Chardonnay to rise to its greatest heights, it needs oak.

No wine type divides wine lovers more than California Chardonnay. It’s the healthcare bill of varieties: you either love it or hate it. Nobody’s indifferent, everyone has an opinion. If you’re an ABCer, I’ll never convince you to like ripe, oaky California Chardonnay. But if it’s not California’s greatest white wine, what is?

There’s been talk of suitcase clones ever since I’ve been in the biz. I wrote about the rise of illegally-imported budwood in my first book, A Wine Journey along the Russian River. Back in the 1990s, winemakers, mainly Pinot Noiristes, bragged about bringing in special stuff from Romanée-Conti or wherever. Some of their reputations were based, in part, on their scoundrelly behavior; they were legends for being outlaws. Even though it was always soto voce — under the table — everyone knew who’d done what. California’s a big state, but the wine community is a little village.

To tell you the truth, I never stopped to think about the downside of bringing in budwood that hadn’t gone through the proper channels. It seemed pretty harmless to me. After all, these winemakers or growers had good motives: to increase the quality of California wine. All they were doing was going around a slow, bumbling bureaucracy, right? So who cared?

Well, as things turned out, maybe we all should have cared. Check out this article, Moth forces wine country’s secret into the open,

reported from the Associated Press but widely repeated in the last 24 hours. This is good journalism, folks, and it’s made me rethink my formerly casual attitude toward smuggling in illegal budwood.

Turns out this new European grapevine moth that’s threatening Napa vineyards may well have hitchhiked straight into the heart of Napa Valley on smuggled wood. There’s no proof, but “Agricultural officials say that had the European grapevine moth (Lobesia botrana) innocently evaded inspectors on a container ship, the first trapping of the grape eater would have been near a port,” not 60 miles inland as Napa Valley is from my hometown port of Oakland, the leading port of entry into Northern California.

Makes sense to me. I guess what I don’t understand is why anybody would need plant material that’s not already widely available in the U.S., especially in Napa Valley, where the smuggled wood would almost certainly have been a Bordeaux red variety. Isn’t there enough good Cabernet, Petite Verdot, Merlot, etc. available commercially? Why would somebody need a few sticks from Pavie or Latour or wherever? Asimov had a nice post on suitcase clones a few years ago, in The Pour, where his money quote was this: “But the truth is that the origin of a vine, whether from a clone boldly swiped from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti or meekly purchased from the local nursery, is at best meaningless.”

True, true, true. It would be like me playing a Stradivarius: no matter how good the instrument, the noise it made in my untalented hands would be awful.

We’ll probably never know how exactly the moth came into California, and even if the authorities could prove it was from vine wood, we’d never know who the culprit was who brought it in. The culprit himself might not even know. So California vintners and growers, it’s time to stop this dubious practice. It’s had its advantages in the past; no more. No more suitcase clones, period.

If I had written about wine bloggers the way Armond White wrote about film critics, there would be armed militias of bloggers marching on my house, carrying pitchforks, packing lead, and hoisting “Wanted!” posters showing my face in the crosshairs. (And thanks to commenter Tom Merle, who brought this to my attention.)

White, a film critic who is chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle, delivered an absolutely scathing jeremiad against today’s film critics, whom he accuses of allowing “the dignity and significance of film criticism” to “decline.” White alleges that “film journalism has—perhaps unconsciously—been considered a part of the film industry and expected to be a partner in Hollywood’s commercial system.” Critics nowadays are not exemplars of “the profession of film criticism,” they are “adjuncts to advertising.”

White doesn’t stop there. The Internet, and blogs in particular, receive direct blows. He accuses the Internet of fostering “Babel-like chaos,” and, “in the current war between print and electronic media…the Internet’s free-for-all” has led to a “deluge of fans’ notes, angry sniping, half-baked impressions, and clubhouse amateurism.”

Whew!

White’s fusillade was a big deal. When he gave his remarks, in the audience were Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Mo’Nique, Kathryn Bigelow and others, with enough Oscars between them (past and to come) to fill a truck.

Now, if you wanted, you could substitute the word “wine” for the word “film” in White’s speech, and what you’d get would be an older wine writer’s blast at a younger generation of wine bloggers whom he deemed totally incompetent. Try it yourself. Here are some sample phrases in which I made the substitution:

-The Internet has helped derange the concept of wine criticism.
- Younger wine critics are hostile to the idea of learning, reflection, and personal (rather than herd-mentality) expression.
- Disrespect for expertise and personal response in wine criticism comes down to a vulgar, if not simply craven, attack on intelligence, taste, and individual preference.

Bloggers! I am not saying these things! So put down your pitchforks and, please, don’t be stalking me here in Oakland (which is not a city you want to come to anyway if you have hate in your heart). I’m just saying that, even if I thought these things, I’d be scared to say them. Y’all are a pretty ornery bunch, and I’m not gonna shove a stick into that hornet’s nest. But the essence of White’s screed is for self-awareness. Every wine writer nowadays, whether blogger or newspaper columnist, should ask herself: Am I an unwitting publicist for the winery, or am I an intrepid journalist?

But back to the title of this blog. Underlying the force of White’s argument is his assumption, which I think is correct, that because film is such an important part of America’s cultural self-identity, therefore film criticism is fundamentally important in itself. That’s what enables White to speak in such apocalyptic political, moral and historical terms as he does.

Wine criticism, on the other hand, is just, well, wine writing. It can never be as important as film criticism, because wine will never be as important as film in our self-consciousness of who we are. Wouldn’t it be cool if a new release of a wine had everybody talking? But that won’t happen. Even “New Coke” had more conversation than any wine ever will. No bottle of wine will ever be a “Citizen Kane,” with people talking about it 60 years later. Still, entre nous, our conversations about wine empower and inspire us.

A couple years ago, Dr. Vino had a blog on “wine tattoos.” I found it after Googling “wine and tattoos” (it came up second, just after a hit for a brand with the word “tattoo” in the name). Dr. Vino had pointed out how so many people, especially Millennials, are not only getting tattoos these days, they’re getting wine tattoos. Tyler showed pictures with wine cork tattoos and tattoos  of glassfuls of wine. In return, people commented and sent in pictures of their own wine tattoos, including a guy with big, purple grape bunches on his arm.

I got my own tattoo the day before yesterday, but it wasn’t a wine tattoo. When I first decided to get a tattoo, Philip, the artist, asked what I wanted. I said I didn’t know. “What about grapes?” he asked, knowing my proclivities. “Or wine bottles?” “Good heavens, no!” I said (well, words to that effect), fairly screaming. I live and breathe wine 24/7. The last thing I wanted was to have my first tattoo be anything about wine.

Anyway, we finally worked out the design.

The process took about 3 hours and wasn’t nearly as painful as I’d feared. While I watched Philip do his art (with his chihuahua, Lula, in my lap, which helped ease me), it crossed my mind that there was a similarity between Philip’s work and that of a winemaker. A tattoo is first envisioned in the imaginations of both the tattoo artist and the tattoo getter. In my case, there was real collaboration with Philip, because the actual image, being on you for the rest of your life, should not be trivially conceived. Philip and I engaged in what was almost like psychotherapy, as he tried to help me figure out what image I wanted. The theme of black-and-red roses, intertwined on thorny vines, was what we came up with. (Don’t ask me to explain it here. Next time you and I are drinking, I can tell you.)

Then the hard task of creating it occurs. There is physical effort, some degree of discomfort, and the task is time-consuming. And while the tattoo artist is working, he’s usually playing his favorite music on a CD. When the new tattoo is completed, it still isn’t ready; it needs a week or so to firm up, for the skin to recover. When the tattoo finally is ready, there it is, in all its glory.

Wine, too, first is envisioned in the winemaker’s mind. He imagines all he knows of the vintage (I’m talking about good wine, not supermarket stuff), all he remembers of past vintages, everything he knows about the vineyard. He is, in fact, communing with himself, to determine with the greatest precision he can what his eventual wine will be like. This process is ongoing; even after the grapes are crushed, the winemaker will be making decisions, right through to bottling. He wants to get the reality of what’s in the bottle as close as he can to the Platonic picture in is mind.

There are hard tasks in winemaking, too. Winemakers sweat and get hurt and occasionally bleed in the performance of their jobs. They grow cold in winter and hot in summer. There’s almost always music playing in a winery, unless the tourists are filling up the place and they have to turn it off. And when the wine finally is in the bottle, it’s not yet ready to drink. Like raw skin after a fresh tattoo, the new wine needs time to settle down, to get over its shock, to heal. But when it’s finally ready, there it is, in all its glory.

Okay, maybe I’m stretching comparisons a little thin. But believe it or not, going through this experience of getting a tattoo has made me more sensitive to the intricacies and agonies of making wine.