Does the wine industry do a lousy job marketing to women? That’s what this article in the Oregonian says.

“[T]he corporate wine world has got it wrong when it comes to marketing to women” is the conclusion, and the article offers plenty of supporting evidence, most of it anecdotal. There are all those dumb brand names that are supposed to appeal to women: Little Black Dress, Girly Girl wine, White Lie, and they might have mentioned Bitch wine, with its pretty in pink label.

The article also draws a sharp line between the way men and women shop for wine. Men, who are “more likely to be posting on eRobertParker,” will “bring in their Blackberries and look up Spectator points.” Women by contrast “come in [the store] by themselves…Their attitude seems to be more, ‘This is what I really like and that’s why I want to drink it.’ It’s really more about ‘me time’ rather than getting another 95-point trophy to show your friends,” says the owner of a Portland wine bar.

The article cites some female wine marketers who give advice on how to target women. “Emphasize the ‘elegance’ of wine…Advertise the activity, not the object…How about showing women cooking together or sitting at their book club, socializing and enjoying wine…”.

I asked my Facebook friends what they think of the industry’s marketing to women, and the replies came in fast and furious. “The wine industry does a crap job of marketing to everybody. Women just get an extra dose of crappy,” said one, a man. A woman, who sounds like she had a lot of pent-up feelings, wrote, “Overall the wine industry does a TERRIBLE time marketing to women. We are treated overall like second class citizens or as if we are attempting to enter an all male social club. I’ve actually had wine merchants say to me ‘Wow, not many women know what they are talking about when it comes to wine.’ Really? Really? Maybe if they would shut up and freaking listen to us, they would understand how ridiculous that statement is.”

Another woman summed it up: “Women don’t buy on points, first of all (the ‘mine is bigger than yours’ doesn’t work). And women don’t like dumbed down wines (less calories!) or ridiculous targeted names (girly girl? give me a break). This is why tastings are important, because women seem to buy what they like and in order to do that, they must have a reference.”

I thought about the women I know who buy wine. They’re mostly strong and independent, and can hold their own with a bunch of yakkity guy wine snobs. But maybe that’s just the women in my life. It does sound like there’s a problem out there, especially considering that women drink most of the wine consumed in the U.S.

If there is a certain anti-woman snobbism in fine wine shops, I can relate to how women experience it. I remember how awkward I used to feel when I went into Draper & Esquin, an upscale shop in the Financial District. This was back in the Eighties, when I was getting into wine. I was ready to buy (not the most expensive bottles, but still), I was curious and had questions, and I longed for the clerks to make me feel welcome. They never did. Instead, they made me feel like I didn’t belong there. You can communicate a lot through body language, and theirs was basically: get lost. As a result, I never bought a single bottle at Draper & Esquin, which eventually closed down. Gee, I wonder why.

Most wineries these days are doing their best to increase direct sales to consumers. With the recession, they’re seeing a much more sluggish market than usual. Stores and restaurants aren’t selling as much, there are fewer visitors to the tasting room, and such as there are do not want to spend any more than they have to.

What’s a vintner to do?

We know they’re turning to the Internet and to social media to build brands, make new friends and keep old ones, and attract more members to their wine clubs. And in those clubs, they’re offering special things that are not available through the usual channels. That makes the members feel like they’re getting in on something — sort of like an initial public offering, only it’s wine, not a stock.

Winemakers also are getting increasingly ingenious when it comes to P.R. Well, that’s probably not the winemakers themselves, but their public relations people. Everybody’s pitching, pitching, pitching these days. They realize it doesn’t work anymore to pitch this tired old kind of story: “Don and Janet were bored with their old life. He made a fortune in [fill in the blank], while she was a stay-at-home mom raising their kids in [fill in the city]. So they decided to return to nature by buying 30 acres in [fill in the wine region] and grow [fill in the grape variety]. They hired [fill in famous winemaking consultant] and have now released their first wine,” blah blah blah.

That is so Nineties! No, today the pitch needs an angle, a twist. Something connected to a charity often works — whales are a perennial favorite. Biodynamic is on the wane, but it still works. Ethnic and cross cultural is coming on strong. Wine and food pairing always works. Who doesn’t like to eat? And spirits are big. Get yourself a hot mixologist, and you’re golden.

Vintners are also going to more and more wine fairs, symposia, big public tastings and the like. They’ve always done that, but I think they’re having to do it more nowadays. Anything to catch another customer, get the brand name out there, nail down some loyalty.

It used to be that the winemaker would drive [or fly] to the fair, do their thing, then drive [or fly] back. Big waste of time, all that travel. Could be doing something more productive. In France, they are. A new for-profit business provides the service of telling traveling winemakers where along their route a group of wine lovers has invited them into their homes for a little tasting. Says Decanter: “It has become imperative that, while [winemakers] are at wine fairs, or on their way back home after a sales trip, they can maximise their time away. Meeting wine lovers directly in their homes is an effective way to do this.” Let’s say Bob Cabral drove down to Shell Beach for World of Pinot Noir. On his way back to Healdburg, he’d get a text message: “The Wisenheimers have invited you to their home in Los Altos Hills for a tasting. They’ve invited their neighbors. The address is….”. And: “On your way to the Golden Gate Bridge, make a detour at Geary and go up to Seacliff. The Lotsabucks will host you.”

A winemaker’s day is never done!

* * *

And then there’s the Commonwealth of Virginia, which has been drifting to the right for years. The state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission recently banned college newspapers from accepting alcohol advertising.

That prompted several Virginia colleges to challenge the ban, but it [the ban] was upheld by a U.S. Court of Appeals. On Monday, the ACLU stepped in, asking for a reversal. I know that conservatives often complain about “the nanny state” — government that is overweening and intrusive. They always say people should be left alone to make their own decisions. Well, shouldn’t college newspapers be allowed to accept advertising from perfectly legal alcohol companies, including bars that sponsor happy hours (the ban even outlaws use of that phrase!)? Come on, Virginia. Your most famous native son, Thomas Jefferson, loved wine. He must be rolling in his grave.

My old friend David was complaining about wine yesterday. He doesn’t know much about it, despite my mentoring him for all these years, but he does know he’s looking for, and missing, “tannins.”

What does David mean when he talks about “tannins”?

He said he wants to feel something solid in his mouth when he sips a wine. Something grippy, structural. I told him that, if he didn’t mind spending $60 or $80 a bottle, there were some Barolos and Barbarescos I could recommend which would fulfill his tannin quotient. He replied that he buys Super-Tuscans, but even they seem too soft for him.

This set me to thinking. I probably use the word “soft” in my wine reviews more than any other adjective, except, possibly, for “dry.” (Maybe “fruity,” also.) Sometimes when I call a wine soft, it’s a compliment. But most of the time, it’s not. For example, I called an Esser 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon soft, but then I explained it “lacks structure, which makes it taste too sweet.” Sometimes, a wine without firm tannins and at least some decent acidity will taste sweet even it it’s technically dry.

This is the problem with so many California red wines. They’re too soft. That makes many of them taste alike, even when they’re made from varieties as different as Petite Sirah, Mourvedre, Syrah, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. We inherited from Old Europe the concept that different grape varieties should and do taste differently from each other. They’re grown in distinctive places to which they’re adapted their dna to thrive, and they express distinct qualities. I don’t suppose it has been easy, all these centuries, to mistake a Beaune Pinot Noir with a Saint-Estephe Cabernet Sauvignon (despite Harry Waugh’s wry “not since lunch” reply when asked if he’d ever confused Burgundy and Bordeaux).

But here in California it is very easy to confuse virtually any red variety for any other, with the possible exception of Pinot Noir. You’d think Sangiovese, that other “transparent” red wine, would show its telltale signature, but it doesn’t. Not when it’s made everywhere from Howell Mountain to Temecula, and the prevailing style is as I described an Andretti 2007: “Firm, chewy tannins and jammy black cherry flavors mark this dry red wine. It has nuances of currants and anise.” That could be almost anything, couldn’t it, even Pinot Noir.

Yet I must taste and review all the California wines that come my way and try to provide some help to readers. If so many things taste so similar, how do I distinguish between an 85 and a 92? My initial response would be “structure,” but that brings me back to David’s complaint about tannins. There are very few California wines that possess great structure. Even when I praise a wine’s structure, it must be seen as being relative: compared to most other wines, such and such a wine has a good structure. An example: of a J. Lohr 2006 Hilltop Cabernet Sauvignon, I wrote: “rich in tannic structure, with deep, complex flavors…” etc. Did I mean, then, to suggest it had the same tannin-acid structure that my colleague, Monica Larner, praised in Luciano Sandrone’s 2005 Cannubi Boschis, a Nebbiolo from Barolo? Of course not. But for a California Cabernet, and particularly one from Paso Robles, it showed good structure. This is what I mean when I stress that wine reviewing has to be done in context. Not “Is this a wine that can stand next to anything in the world” but “Is this a good example of its variety, region and winery?”

California grapegrowers and winemakers are aware of this problem of lack of structure, but some of them don’t seem to give a damn. They keep churning out soft wines that taste like melted dessert pastries, and I keep giving them low scores and wondering who in heaven’s name is buying this stuff. But check out this article from the current issue of Western Farm Press, which caters to the grower community. Researchers at Fresno State are tinkering with ways “to extract more anthocyanins, total phenols, tannins and color to improve wine quality,” which is to say, they’re developing “smaller berries [that] produce a higher skin-to-pulp ratio,” which in turn increases tannins, leading to better structure (as well as deeper flavors). Which giant wine company is Fresno State working with? Bronco. Good for Fred Franzia. He could probably sell anything he makes no matter what it is, so he deserves credit for trying to boost quality.

In a previous episode, Steve Noir, wine critic, has been approached by a mystery woman, who claims to know secrets about certain Napa Valley Cabernets. They meet at the Rutherford Grill, but the woman leaves suddenly, upon seeing someone or something. The plot now resumes:

What had scared “Lola” half out of her wits? None other than Wilfred Wong.

But what was the famed cellarmaster from BevMo doing here on this stormy night? And why had Lola been so frightened of the mild-mannered Mr. Wong?

Wilfred espied me at the bar and walked toward me, extending his hand. He had a grin on his face as if he’d not only eaten the proverbial canary, he’d had a couple parakeets, too.

“Wilfred,” I said, shaking it. His hand, I mean.

“Doctor Noir,” Wilfred said. He always calls me by some honorific. After some chit chat, we got down to business.

“I noticed you were having drinks with Anastasia,” Wilfred said. A wry, amused smile played on his lips.

“She told me her name is Lola.”

“Negative on that, Steverino. She’s Anastasia La Flambé. Been working the fringes of the community for years. A little Mossad, some MI5, CIA black box stuff. Even couriered for the Chinese during the diethylene glycol days.”

I whistled.

“Yeah,” Wilfred said. He summoned the barkeep. “A Pink Mojito, and don’t forget the cherries.”

“That it for you?” The barkeep looked at my empty wine glass. Before I could answer, Wilfred said, “He’s having the same.” He glanced at me. “On me.”

“You — or BevMo?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. It was an innocent question, but the answer might shed some light on what was really going on.

“Me personally,” Wilfred said. “I’m not here on official business.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I might ask you the same, counselor.”

“Just found myself in the neighborhood,” I shrugged.

“Kind of far from Oakland,” Wilfred parried. “Take a wrong turn on Broadway?”

The barkeep brought our Pink Mojitos.

“Cheers!” Wilfred said, his face as bland as a poker chip. His eyes gave nothing away. This was a man of secrets deep as the sea, dark as the far side of the moon. Secrets of the tomb, of the grave, of the inside of a magician’s saw-the-lady-in-half box. The kind of secrets “Lola” was about to reveal before she’d fled at the sight of the man now sitting next to me.

“To Lola!” I replied, raising my glass.

“The alluring Ms. La Flambé!” Wilfred shouted.

“So how do you know her?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Lola — the La Flambé woman. What’s up with you two, anyhow?”

Wilfred plucked one of the maraschino cherries from his Pink Mojito and plopped it in his mouth.

“Long story,” he said, chewing.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He looked at me, as if weighing alternatives. “It involved a wine.”

“Doesn’t it always?”

Wilfred laughed, for the first time that night. I had the feeling he was stalling for time. Eventually, he would tell me a story — but whether or not it had any relationship to the truth was another question.

“Or rather, two wines,” Wilfred began. “Because, you see, I could only buy one of them for BevMo, and I needed to make a decision, fast.”

“And Lola — Ms. La Flambé — helped you make your decision?”

“Ahh, Detective Noir, we are getting ahead of ourselves.” He drained his Pink Mojito and summoned another from the barkeep. “No, not exactly. Let’s just say that Anastasia was instrumental in my deciding to buy one, and not the other.”

“I see,” I said, although I didn’t. “You mean, she had something to do with your decision — some role she played, some influence on your eventual choice, although she did not, herself, personally persuade you which wine to buy?”

“You might say that.”

“I just did.”

“True,” Wilfred said, stirring his Pink Mojito. “But tell me, my esteemed Doctor Einstein, did you ever consider this?”

I sat. Waited. And waited. Wilfred was eating more maraschino cherries.

“I’m sorry, Wilfred, but you were saying–?”

“Exactly!” Wilfred smiled at me indulgently, like an Aunt who’s just given her favorite grand-nephew a shiny new quarter for Christmas, like a cop who let you off on a speeding ticket because you reminded him of his first girlfriend, like the electrocutioner at Sing Sing who’s the last human face the condemned murderer will ever see on this earth.

But suddenly, my napkin rose an inch, hovered in the air like a flying fish, sailed across the bar, then flopped lazily down to the sticky floor. The front door of the bar had opened, bringing in a cold gust of wind — and coming right through that door was none other than Herself, Lola, the mysterious Anastasia La Flambé. Only this time, she was not alone.

I’m still enjoying Secrets of the Sommeliers. There’s a section where Rajat Parr is talking about “the key to memorizing and comprehending wine styles from classic regions,” which is “to establish a single benchmark wine that represents a region or style.” Then, in analyzing any other wine of that variety or style, you compare it to that classic wine.

For example, here’s Rajat’s thinking process for understanding Bonnes Mares. “Does it taste like Pinot Noir?…Then, does it taste like Pinot Noir from Burgundy? Does it taste like Pinot Noir from the village of Chambolle-Musigny? And, finally, does it taste like Pinot Noir from the Chambolle-Musigny vineyard of Bonnes Mares?” If it does, “For me,” Rajat says, “that wine is Domaine Roumier Bonnes Mares.”

There are, to be sure, not all that many “classic” regions throughout the world where such an approach is possible. Rajat limits them to a top tier including Burgundy, the Loire, Champagne, Bordeaux and the Rhone; also, German Riesling (Mosel, Rheingau, Pflaz, Rheinhessen), Austrian Riesling and Gruner V., and Italian Piedmont, Tuscany and Veneto.  He makes allowances for Spanish Rioja, sherry and albarino, port and vinho verde and, from the New World, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Aussie Shiraz, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Oregon Pinot Noir.

We can nitpick. I thought it would be interesting to take Rajat’s approach to “comprehending wine styles” and apply it to California. What are the classic grape varieties and wines, areas, producers and vineyards that represent “benchmarks” for the state? This is easy to do, in principle; hard, in fact, mainly because California’s history is so much shorter than France’s. Also, because in California, you can legally grow anything anywhere, as opposed (notoriously) in Old Europe.

Still, difficult as the task may be, it must be attempted, starting with Cabernet Sauvignon. I will concur with Rajat that Napa Valley remains the alpha and omega of Cabernet — so far. I consider Rajat’s Four Questions (does it taste like Cabernet? Does it taste like Cabernet from Napa Valley? Does it taste like Cabernet from the Stags Leap District of Napa Valley? Does it taste like the Hillside Select of Shafer?) and make my decison. Shafer Hillside Select: a California Cabernet Sauvignon that is a benchmark.

Pinot Noir. Rajat doesn’t consider California Pinot classic, although he does let Oregon into the club (which must make Paul Gregutt ecstatic). But that’s Rajat’s club. Mine is open to California Pinot Noir. Is there a wine that tastes like Pinot Noir? Does it taste like Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley? Does it taste like Pinot Noir from the warmer Middle Reach of the Russian River Valley? Does it taste like the Rochioli Riverblock Pinot Noir? Yes, four times. Williams Selyem Rochioli Riverblock Pinot Noir, a classic benchmark.

I’ll stop with Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir, because there are other issues to sort out. Because you can legally plant anything you want anywhere in California, we can’t say (as they can in France) that the best Pinot Noir must taste like it comes from Burgundy (or the Cotes de Nuits, or Bonnes Mares). It’s in no one’s interests to set up beauty contests between the Middle Reach and Green Valley, or Philo, or the central Santa Lucia Highlands, or the Santa Rosa Road corridor of the Santa, err, Sta. Rita Hills, or the Arroyo Grande, or Carneros, or anyplace else. Ditto with Cabernet, which you can’t even limit to Napa Valley; and, even if you could, you would have to take into consideration the wide range of terroirs, ranging from Howell Mountain to the Rutherford Bench, from the flatlands of Georges III to the top of Atlas Peak, and so on.

Of course, Rajat could have taken the same approach to, say, Clos de Vougeot, Chambertin, Musigny, etc., as he did with Bonnes Mares, which would complicate and lengthen his process. But he would not have had to include Pinot Noir from anyplace else in France, which simplifies it; Rajat is limited to a relatively smallish growing area. It may be — I can certainly see the day coming — when we will have to begin including Cabernets (and Cabernet-dominated blends) from Paso Robles, Happy Canyon, parts of Sonoma County (of course) and possibly other areas, among the “classic benchmarks” of California; and, of course, we’re already there when it comes to Pinot Noir.

Another difficulty in California, as I earlier said, is its briefness of history. Take a wine like Evening Land’s Occidental Vineyard Pinot Noir. It is extraordinary, classic — but since they’ve only released a single vintage (2007), can it be a benchmark?

I don’t take precisely Rajat Parr’s approach to analyzing wine. But it is a useful, instructive one. What do you look for in judging a glass of wine? What benchmarks exist in your head? Whether or not you use a 100 point system, or puffs, or stars, or some other icon, or just a vague feeling in your mind, how do you calibrate wine quality?