Napa Valley disappoints Rene A. Henry - marketing expert

Marketing is something that Philadelphia's Rene A. Henry knows something about. You might almost say, "he wrote the book" - at least one of them. His "Marketing Public Relations: The Hows That Make It Work," was published in 1995 by the Iowa University Press, and it quickly became the text and required reading for college marketing courses.

One of the threads woven into the text is "expectations." A family going to the country fair could, rightfully, expect to be able to purchase cotton candy; a student, entering the campus book store, should be able to find a dictionary; thus, figured Henry, a tourist traveling the north coast wine country in California should be able to pick up a sterling silver tastevin with no trouble. Not so.

On one of his recent visits to San Francisco, Henry decided, since he was going to be traveling around and through the Napa Valley and Sonoma County, that he would pick up a sterling silver tastevin as a gift for his daughter who had just completed a difficult, year-long wine course in New York City. He had bought his own tastevin some years earlier at one of the Napa Valley wineries, and figured it would be a simple matter to find exactly what he wanted, on a one-day swing through the Napa Valley.

Early in his professional career, one of his clients had been Beaulieu Vineyard. Then, from 1967 to 1970, he was part of the team that represented the marketing cooperative of the California Wine Growers. He was, thus, no stranger to the wine country. But he might as well have been.

First on his list was Beringer Vineyards, where he was confident he would pick up the tastevin after sampling the wines he had on his list. "But how times have changed," he marveled. "I couldn't believe the traffic, the crowds, the ranks of tour buses unloading forty visitors at a time. The tasting room was packed, and a board announced which wines were available for sampling - for a fee."

The tasting pour, he felt, was too generous, given that he planned to visit a number of wineries, so he looked for a dump bucket, and a pitcher of water to rinse his glass. Neither was available, so he turned in his glass, and walked into the adjacent, well-stocked gift shop. To his surprise, the clerk had no idea what a tastevin was, and had no better idea when he switched to calling it a tasting cup. After Henry described the article in detail, the young woman recommended he try at a jewelry store in St. Helena.

"I parked just south of the Post Office," he recalls, "and walked down one side of the street for five or six blocks, then crossed over and walked back the other side. I must have visited at least a dozen shops. I was encouraged, when two of the jewelers said they knew what I was looking for, and that, perhaps they should consider stocking it, and maybe they would. At several of the stores I was assured I could find tastevins in a range of styles and prices at wineries farther up and down the Valley, and that possibly the best bet was to stop at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone." Since the CIA was not too far away, he drove north and wandered through the gift shop.

"Their displays contained every possible item used for cooking and entertaining," he reports, "except a tastevin. The excuse was that to carry tastevins would put them in competition with local merchants already carrying the object. When I countered that not only were there no tastevins in stock at any of the local outlets, but that I wondered how he justified carrying any number of tools which were readily available in town, he simply shrugged. He was also without an answer when I asked how a school which must have a curriculum for teaching students how to become better sommeliers could operate without a tastevin, or," Henry added, getting a little testy himself, "perhaps you would know it as what the French sommeliers call a cuiller a sommelier, or possibly 'a sommelier's spoon." End of conversation, and back on the road.

Traveling south, he tried Niebaum-Coppola Estate Winery, since he also had on his list to pick up a 1994 Coppola Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, and a 1994 Coppola Estate Napa Valley Merlot. When the tasting room "host" gave him a curt, "no" when he asked about a tastevin, he decided he didn't need the wines, either, and left.

Describing his pilgrimage to the waiter when he stopped for lunch, he received the suggestion that he stop at Sutter Home Winery. "It was a good idea, because I got my first laugh of the day, when the attendant, in response to my query about a tastevin, apologized and said, 'Gee, we don't carry that wine' and when I looked at him in astonishment, he added, 'It is a wine, isn't it?'" As Henry walked out, he was shaking his head and asking himself, 'What has happened to the Napa Valley?'"

Eventually, after touring up and down Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail, now not even tasting wine, but determined to end his quest for a tastevin successfully, he ran out of time, and headed back to his hotel in San Francisco.

Does the story have a happy ending? Yes, indeed. The following afternoon, in the Livermore Valley, at his last stop for the day he found exactly what he wanted at Concannon Vineyard. He was so excited, he also bought a case of Concannon wine to share with his Bay Area friends, before heading back home.

The happy ending, however, was slightly bittersweet for Rene A. Henry, who spends a good portion of his time lecturing and writing on marketing, customer service, public relations and crisis communications. "It saddened me," he says, "to be faced with so many examples of bad customer service, lack of marketing savvy and an obvious need for staff education. Even, granted, that many tasting room staffers are temporary employees, ceos and marketing directors should be aware of the value of training people who are, in effect, presenting a visitor's first (and lasting) impression of the winery. I'm enough of an optimist to believe that things will be better on my annual visit next year - and I'll have an advantage. I won't be searching, fruitlessly, for a tastevin!

(Millie Howie is a veteran observer of the California wine industry.)

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