A wine specially blended for women, why this could lead to a revival of Alan Bond's great idea when he owned the Swan Brewery of producing a special beer for women. It failed as every commentator said it would as one of its key features was low alcohol and the average female quite rightly said, get stuffed.

But we must keep an open mind as Pure Blonde, the low carbohydrate beer by Fosters does look like a success. Otherwise designing a special alcohol drink for the female market that works is as likely as getting a hole in one.

This has not stopped a steady flow of wines designed for this market. In the last month two have caught my attention. The French company Wine Sight is offering a range under the name Sublimelle which has of course no connection with the French lingerie brand and I'm sure they just dreamed up the name on their own. WineSight's head of British development, Emma Delserieys, gives us this valuable insight; 'We offer different wines to drink for a variety of occasions whether it is a girls' night out, individual tasting pleasure, a romantic dinner, after love making, or a business success' and they have put together a range of wines that are not 'heavy and obvious' but are 'subtle and elegant'. I thought that from the vast range of wine styles these bases were already well covered.

Next is a new wine from Marks and Spencer called Pink Port which according to the publicity is 'a brand new Port style... targeting the younger, female port drinker.' It is of course beautifully made and is bright pink in colour with fresh fruit aromas and is finely tuned to ensure the right balance and we are breathlessly told will 'transform the port category'. Alas the tasting panel at Decanter, the English wine consumer magazine, were not thrilled with this nectar and formed the view that it was 'very confected, with burning alcohol'.

Decanter editor Guy Woodward summed up the panels thoughts this way; 'While I applaud M&S's effort to take port out to a wider audience, I'm not convinced this is the way to do it. This doesn't taste like any port I know - it's more like vodka and cranberry juice. I suspect they're trying to jump on the rosé bandwagon. The nose smells like a rosé but then you get this whack of confected fruits and alcohol on the palate. M&S has built a reputation for high quality, exclusive wines, but I'm afraid this isn't one of them. It tastes rather cheap, and is worryingly close to the alcopop market.'

Now the M&S's genius behind this concoction is Sue Daniels the chain's port specialist who tells us, 'Some people wrongly think port is the preserve of men but we have created a drink which will appeal to women because it is light and flavoursome.' All very well but isn't this the same Sue Daniels, the chains wine technologist, who told us back in February, 2007 that, 'High alcohol wines have had their day. We will be trying to source more wines at 12% alcohol, rather than 14% in the future.' I always thought port was fairly high in alcohol, certainly the Decanter comments are none to kind and as for light their own publicity says 'The port has the same sugar levels as ruby ports' and I never see light, fortified and sugar going together.

In my excitement I recalled the problem an old colleague, Trevor Croker, Sales and Marketing Director for Fosters Wines created for himself last year. Trevor wandered into the muddy pool of 'women's wine' when he launched Early Harvest a wine lower in calories which means lower alcohol. As Jeni Port of the Age described the launch: "Feeling confident he had deciphered the female code, he let fly with a remark that now has him labelled sexist. 'For women, wine is not an intellectual pursuit,' he said. He followed it up with a comment about wine being fun and enjoyed with friends, but alas, the damage was done." Poor Trevor.

Jeni Port also reminds us of a remark attributed to a wine merchant published in one of Walter James books (James wrote beautifully about wine in the 1950's in Australia); 'I have yet to meet a woman that can tell the difference between white and red port when their eyes are shut.' Readers will know my view that rose is the greatest wine fraud ever but at least this wine merchants' observation has been made easier to answer with Pink Port solving how to respond to such a tedious question and at least knowing you are half right.

The last comment is left to one of our readers Brian Miller who says about the new Sublimelle range that a more appropriate name is Suicidelle.