Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 9:20 AM
Subject: Orangewood Wines News - 10
To
Our Wine Aficionados,
Introduction
After the last event update I did get some feedback about
what we should put in the newsletter. Thank you Frank,
Stacy and Sharon. So here is the first attempt at a revised
newsletter. The box score stays. New restaurants and events will be
listed. More details may be available at our website - www.orangewoodwines.com.
Fuller details of sales people and event feedback will be retained, which will
leave room for some rambling. Let us know if this works for you.
Box
Score
New restaurants: 3
New retail outlets: 0
New sales people: 1
New wineries: 0
Contents
Upcoming Events
New Restaurants and Retail outlets
New Sales person - Craig Stancliff
Event Feedback
Rambling
Upcoming
Events - http://www.orangewoodwines.com/wine-events.htm
October 19th Cheuvront
Wine Bar - THIS TUESDAY
October 27th Nello’s,
Scottsdale -
Trick or Treat
November 11th Red
Kangaroo, Scottsdale
- Free tasting
November 19/20th Red
Kangaroo, Chandler
December 17th Red
Kangaroo, Scottsdale
- Christmas is coming
New
Restaurants and Retail outlets
Postino - Phoenix
Herberger Theater - Phoenix
American Jazz Grill - Prescott
New
Sales person - Craig Stancliff
Craig and I have been running into each other in
a lot of places lately. He had told me that he was a wine consultant, and
so he is. He provides local support for out-of-state wineries - making
sure that we distributors are doing our job. However, he has also been in
the wine sales business for a while. He sells selected wines from
multiple distributors’ “books” to a set of clients he has cultivated
over the years. Craig lives in Tucson, so the majority of his clients are
there; he has hardly any Napa or Sierra Foothills wineries in his combined
book; we spend our time trying to get new clients; he would like to have more
wines to sell to his existing clients…we finally figured out we could
both benefit from having him represent us in Tucson. Welcome aboard,
Craig.
Event
Feedback
There have been a lot of events going by.
Jim and I were at the Wine Basket at Hillside in Sedona for a dinner
event. Then Dick ran the last Wednesday of the Month event at the Nello’s
in Scottsdale.
This is the second of these events and so is in a building stage.
It’s quiet, informal and fun. The restaurant is decorated with
pictures painted by Tyler, the owners’ son. These are worth
checking out. Laurie and I were there and met up with Stacy and
Sharon. Stacy is a former Honeywell colleague who is now retired.
They are traveling the country towing their home behind them. They travel
a few hundred miles at a time and then hang out for a week or more. The
home on wheels doesn’t seem to have a wine cellar, though, so I
don’t know how that would work!
When Scott Lloyd was here from Frank Family and
Napa Cellars we had an event at Scottsdale
Marriott at McDowell
Mountain. Rob
and Scott poured at the quarterly manager’s reception for guests,
I hung around. At Bacchus the next day, there was a more formal
tasting - they clear the tables in the store, serve a little food and
participants are led through the wines. In this case it was the Napa
Cellars wines. They are tasting very good and
are selling well. Bacchus now has the entire range. I ran into
another former colleague there - good to see you again, Liz. At Cave
Creek Coffee Company we poured wine, but they are having a little trouble
figuring out how to manage the store. People were unable to buy glasses
or bottles of our wine. It was frustrating for the customers and
us. AJ’s at Arrowhead had
two tastings - one with Scott Lloyd and the Napa
Cellars wines and one with Karla Cristi from Ventana
Vineyards. These can be fun. People stop by with their shopping
lists that have an item “white wine” on them. They try the
white, grab a bottle and head for the aisle that allows them to pick up the
item “can of low carb asparagus
soup”. At Epicurean they had an event called The
Distributors Brawl. Twenty distributors brought 5 wines each.
People could order any of the wines. The subtitle was “taste and
acquire”. It was a well conceived and well run event. For $45
attendees got a Riedel glass, a catalog with tasting notes for all of the
wines, including each distributor’s explanations of “Why their
wines don’t suck”. Attendance was limited to 100 people who
checked color, nose, taste and finish for the wines they were interested
in. Alison handled the brunt of the pouring - thank you. I had
expected there to be many people horizontal from tasting so many wines, but
these were serious tasters and spitters who wanted to
know how the wines tasted without having to buy a whole bottle. The
counting of orders is not yet complete - but I think we were the winners -
we’ll give you an update next time. Finally, last night Karla Cristi led the explanations of Ventana wines to an almost
full house at Ninetta’s Passion Bistro.
We supplied four Ventana wines and the Mount
Vernon port. All were well paired with
complementary foods. Laurie and I took Iggy and
Audrey along (Laurie’s parents) so now they know what a wine
maker’s dinner is like. Next time you should go, too. There
didn’t seem to be much food or wine left at the end of the evening.
Besides these advertised events, we also participated in a trade tasting with 4
other distributors. The event was at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute
who also catered the event. We did one varietal
from each of our wineries. We got a good response and some leads. I
remember in particular that the Mt Vernon Merlot was found best match for the
chocolate truffles that were served towards the end of the afternoon.
Rambling
After rambling through the event feedback, I’m no longer itching to
ramble on other topics. Next time!
Cheers!
Richard
and Laurie