Branding Sonoma

After long, late-night sessions, many weary and time-crunched congressional staffers and lawmakers escape to Sonoma, no plane ticket required.

It's just a short, one-third mile trek from Capitol Hill to 233 Pennsylvania Ave. There, for more than a year, a neighborhood eatery that evokes not just the Wine Country but the Sonoma Wine Country, has been packing in Golden State ex-pats and East Coast food and wine sophisticates -- right in the heart of downtown D.C.

It's not an aberration. The name "Sonoma," once instantly familiar only to those who lived here, now captures the imagination on hot spots from North Carolina to New Zealand.

"I don't know whether it's the work of the Sonoma Chamber of Commerce or just the extensive reach of the wine industry. But it's a name people absolutely recognize and it has a very positive association," said Elias Hengst. He and partner Jared Roger named their hip new D.C. restaurant Sonoma, inspired by the confluence of food, wine, spectacular natural beauty and laid-back luxury for which the region is fast gaining a reputation.

A Washington Post food critic observed that in "tavern heavy" Capitol Hill, the restaurant's very name "messages the California theme."

Napa may carry the greater brand recognition in the wine world. But more agriculturally diverse Sonoma, with its spot at the epicenter of the trendy "locavore" food movement sweeping the country, seems to be capturing the national zeitgeist.

For decades manufacturers have piggybacked products onto the California dream of endless sun, surf and swimming pools. Sonoma, some branding and marketing experts say, seems to embody the updated California mythology, a distinctively Northern California vibe that now is all about the gastronomic good life savored in a mystical land of milk and honey.

It's no longer just the wine. Ever since GMC slipped the name Sonoma onto the back of a peppy little pickup back in 1990, the mellifluous American Indian word that may mean "gathering place" or may mean "nose," depending on which source you believe, has been showing up on a huge range of consumer products. While in the past Sonoma was summoned to evoke the rugged outdoors -- GMC retired the Sonoma truck in 2004 -- it now seems to have morphed into a gauzy, Martha Stewart-esque lifestyle of dusty country roads leading to rural chic estates.

"What may be old hat to us in Northern California is new to other people," said Lynn Upshaw, an East Bay branding and marketing consultant and faculty member at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

California magic

"People still think of California as something magical. In the middle of winter, they can't understand how this place can even exist. They don't necessarily want to live here but they do feel it's an unusual and beautiful place."

Crabtree & Evelyn, a longtime maker of lotions and soaps prettily packaged to conjure up English cottage gardens, offers a Sonoma Valley fragrance line of ripe fruit, flowers, woods and ferns, "inspired by the picturesque region of Sonoma, California."

According to the company Web site, "Idyllic vineyards, rolling meadows and sparkling creeks provide a backdrop to the relaxed lifestyle of this region, rich in creative and artistic expression."

The name Sonoma can now be found on everything from field glasses by Tasco to a lounge chair at Ace Hardware, tableware by Thomson to tea kettles by Farberware. Coach, the ultimate name in aspirational handbags, featured a Sonoma line of natural grain leather purses that sold in the three figures. Men can order a pair of H.S. Trask "Sonoma" loafers for $170. "Sonoma" is one of the leading house brands for Kohl's Department Stores, putting Sonoma on blue jeans and bath towels. Montgomery Ward is peddling a Sonoma line of furniture. The even more well-heeled homeowner can capture a bit of Wine Country glamour by logging on to PoshLiving.com and ordering up the "Sonoma" wicker and mahogany outdoor bar set for $3,263.

Co-opting cachet

Sonoma carries what marketing experts call "geographic equity." Manufacturers, restaurants and retailers can gain an immediate response from consumers, even without marketing, by co-opting the cachet of a place, even if the product was made in China and has no connection to the area at all, said Damon Aiken, a professor of marketing at Western Washington University, who has studied the phenomenon.

Branding experts say the name Sonoma may suddenly be so ubiquitous, perhaps even more than Napa, because it effectively telegraphs something more than wine.

"Everyone around the world knows Napa and they have a built-in expectation so everything is going to be measured against that," said Jay Jurisick, creative director for Igor, a branding and naming agency based in San Francisco.

But Sonoma, he said, is more of a "blank slate."

Exotic sounds

"It's got an exotic-sounding name that connotes luxury," he said, "without being so specific."

And frankly, some observe, the mysterious, multisyllabic "Sonoma," which could be vaguely Italian, or maybe Spanish, is not only more melodic to the ear, but prettier in a print logo.

Steffany Wildbrett, manager of the Sonoma Grill and Wine Bar in the upscale Dallas suburb of Flower Mound, Texas, has never been to Napa or Sonoma. But she says Sonoma just "sounds a little more elegant."

"The Napa Grill and Wine Bar," she mused, "doesn't flow very well."

Pierre Bader, whose Sonoma restaurant caters to an upscale corporate clientele in downtown Charlotte, N.C., agreed.

"Napa, to be honest, is Auto Parts. It was not something I wanted to name the restaurant after," said Bader, who says the inspiration for his restaurant came from visiting "Northern California Wine Country's rolling vistas, fine restaurants, wonderful wines and casual settings."

Bader is committed to the local farm fresh food pioneered by chefs like Alice Waters, and which has come to embody Sonoma, with its plethora of small truck farms, artisan cheesemakers and other purveyors.

Synonymous with food

The branding of Sonoma may be nowhere more prevalent than in the food world, where Sonoma cafes, bistros and restaurants are showing up in such disparate spots as the cow town of Calgary, Alberta, and Delray Beach, Fla.

Williams-Sonoma undoubtedly helped pave the way. The $2 billion retailer, born in a Sonoma storefront 50 years ago, was among the first to market kitchen gadgets and cookware as status merchandise. Founder Chuck Williams has said he kept the name even after moving his shop to San Francisco because it had a high-end retailer ring to it -- like Abercrombie & Fitch. And now the name Sonoma is indelibly attached to the culinary good life.

Raymond Mamedany said he decided to name his Capistrano Beach restaurant and wine bar Sonoma after realizing that 200 of the 300 wines on his wine list were Sonoma labels. His menu touts Sonoma duck and Laura Chenel's Sonoma goat cheese.

"Your name and your food," he said, "are a sign of who you are and what you're trying to accomplish."

Napa too elite

In the central Massachusetts town of Princeton, an old exurban summer getaway for the Boston crowd, Jim Brady said he picked Sonoma over Napa as the name for his restaurant because "the people are a little more stuffy there (in Napa)."

"The winemakers and growers of Sonoma don't mind getting their hands dirty and they're comfortable drinking wine out of real crystal or a jelly jar, as long as it was the best that could be."

But Brady laments that because it's a geographical place name, he gets no exclusivity.

"In the town next to me someone opened a strip mall and named it Sonoma Square. And five miles from me in Springfield someone opened up a Sonoma Wine Bar."

The name is not however, just about image. Robert Thompson, who bought the four-year-old Sonoma Cafe in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, admits he doesn't have the foggiest idea what Sonoma means or even how to pronounce it. Debates have raged in the snug eatery, which serves no California wines, over whether it's "SOnoma, SonomA or SonOma."

Pretty word

"I haven't actually tasted American wine," Thompson admits. But he's kept the name because, frankly, the combination of letters is pleasing in print.

"I come from a design background," he says. "Sonoma is a good-looking word."

But in Washington, D.C., patrons of Sonoma have no trouble associating the congressional hangout with the California Wine Country. According to one of its regulars, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who dips in between votes, the ambience engenders a bit of envy from his colleagues on The Hill.

Thompson said recently while waiting for a table with several house colleagues and sharing a bottle of Bonterra sauvignon blanc made from his own grapes, Congressman Tim Mahoney from Florida grumbled, "You've got a great district. When I die, I want to come back as you."

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.

com.