In his tough-guy fashion, Raymond Chandler — or his alter ego, private detective Philip Marlowe — would have made a terrific wine critic, especially these days. Today’s calculated wine commercialism employs practices designed to make wines seem better than they really are.

For example, in California it’s now common practice to allow grapes to become overripe, the better to create outsize flavors and soft tannins. A traditional wine made from such sugar-rich grapes would be very high in alcohol. California winemakers turn to a hightech device called a spinning cone to lower the alcohol level. You can “dial it in,” they say.

In Europe, especially in Bordeaux, winemakers create a kind of false concentration by removing water from the unfermented juice using yet another high-tech gizmo called a vacuum concentrator. A godsend in a wet vintage —when grapes get bloated from harvest rains or when a mistake is made in picking times — it’s also mighty handy if you over-crop your vines and then reduce the dilution later. It’s estimated that Bordeaux alone has some 2,000 vacuum concentrators, including many at the most famous châteaux.

Also, wineries in California, Europe, and Australia frequently use a technique called reverse osmosis, which is an ultra-fine filtration that literally deconstructs wine at the molecular level and then reconstructs it. You can remove alcohol or water molecules as you like.

Are these high-tech tools intrinsically bad? Not at all. They have their place as recourses of last resort, something you employ in a wet vintage.

However, these deconstructionist gizmos are increasingly used as part of many wineries’ annual protocol, never mind the need or the vintage. Too often, the resulting wines are like a Miss America smile, glossy and insincere.

Raymond Chandler put it best: “From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.”

HERE’S THE (REAL) DEAL

Moulin-à-Vent “Vieilles Vignes” 2005, Potel-Aviron — The Burgundy region saw a stupendous vintage in 2005, nowhere better than in the Beaujolais zone. Where pinot noir rules in the Côte d’Or, in Beaujolais gamay noir is king. It likes the granitic soil of Beaujolais and also responds to the area’s warmer temperatures. Beaujolais is the southernmost district of Burgundy, which is why its biggest local customer has always been Lyon, which is just a day’s horse ride away.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the 2005 vintage is where, and why, you should renew your acquaintance with Beaujolais. The best 2005 wines are superb, and bargains for the quality.

A case in point is this exceptional old-vine bottling of the grand cru Moulin-à-Vent, from the shipper Potel-Aviron, a joint effort of Nicolas Potel (whose late father, Gerard, was the longtime winemaker of Volnay’s Domaine de la Pousse d’Or) and Stéphane Aviron, who is based in Beaujolais.

A blend of four old-vine parcels between 40 years old and 65 years old in Moulin-à-Vent for a total of just 550 cases, this is a luxurious, intense, supple yet substantial wine made without any winemaking razzmatazz — and no need for any. Suffused with an intense flavor of wild cherries allied to an almost provocative whiff of bitter chocolate, this is the sort of grand cru Beaujolais that does nothing but improve and evolve over a decade or more of aging, never mind its sheer deliciousness today. It’s a stunner. $25 at Le Du’s Wines, among others.

Renaissance Vineyard Syrah “Vin de Terroir” 2003 — Regular readers will recall that I have previously recommended other wines from Renaissance Vineyard and Winery, which is located in a section of California’s Sierra Foothills zone east of Sacramento. Starting in the early 1970s, Renaissance pioneered a difficult and remote site in North Yuba County, well away from any other wineries. Like Beaujolais, the soil is granitic but the climate is decidedly warmer, although this is modified by high elevation, upward of 2,300 feet. It is a vineyard like no other in California. Not surprisingly, Renaissance’s wines are like no others as well.

Not every Renaissance wine is a winner, as the site and its wines are works in progress. But when the wines are good, they are singularly and spectacularly good. Here again, no winemaking jive is employed or needed. The grapes are organically grown and the winemaking is resolutely non-interventionist. You can taste the difference. Proof is found in this extremely small production — just 110 cases — “Vin de Terroir” syrah created from a one-acre plot at the topmost site of the Renaissance vineyard, a rock-strewn crest that barely has anything most of us would describe as soil.

This is intense yet balanced syrah, with fresh berry-ish flavors suffused with a mingling of wild herbs and stones. Tannins are present but surprisingly refined. This is a very great syrah, the sort better associated with the likes of Hermitage and Côte-Rotie than California.

Available only directly from the winery, which ships to New York, the price is $35 a bottle, with a limit of three bottles for each customer. This wine is proof, if you need it, that California can create syrah of grand cru-level refinement and character. Contact the winery directly at www.rvw.comor at 800-655-3277.