Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 9:28 PM
Subject: Orangewood Wines News - 12

To Our Wine Aficionados,

Introduction

            Thanksgiving is upon us already.  Our best wishes to you.  I hope that you have a relaxing weekend planned and that come Monday you will be refreshed and ready to face the rest of the holiday season.

Box Score

New restaurants/bars: 3

New retail outlets: 1

New sales people: 0

New wineries: 0

Contents

Upcoming Events

New Restaurants and Retail outlets

Rambling

Upcoming Events - http://www.orangewoodwines.com/wine-events.htm

            These events are described in more detail at the web-site.  It’s also a good place to check for corrections and changes. However, here is what I know at the moment.

December 1        6:00 - 8:00     Nello’s, Tempe

December 3        3:30 - 5:30     A.J.’s Mesa

December 8        6:00 - 8:00     Nello’s, Scottsdale

New Restaurants and Retail outlets

      We are chipping away at several places, but they are all too busy to think about adding wines before Thanksgiving.   In the meantime, we have now placed wine at the following locations:  

A.J.’s Via Linda - Scottsdale

Haus Murphy - Glendale

Fleming’s - Tucson

Feast - Tucson

Rambling

When you drive through an area where deer are likely to be crossing the road there is a warning sign that pictures a deer trying to leap into orbit.  Most of the deer I see have their heads down eating, or their heads up staring at me or my headlights - depending on whether it is night or day.  Earlier in the year I was driving down Carmel Valley Road in Monterey County on my way from Monterey to the Ventana Winery just south of Soledad.  The road is long, windy and beautiful.  Warning signs let you know that it’s a long way to the nearest gas station.  Much of the road is fenced from the surrounding countryside, so the deer that was munching at the side of the road had to leap the fence to escape the approach of the supreme predator. (That would be me.)  It was at that moment I realized the warning sign designer has it right.  The standing 6 foot leap executed by the deer was a perfect 10.0 in terms of style.  I was reminded of that trip this morning as I jogged into Cave Creek Park.  I must have startled the deer, because it executed a series of warning sign leaps as it moved away from my low speed approach.

Having time to enjoy the minutiae of daily life is one of the benefits of starting your own company.  Dealing with the minutiae is one end of the spectrum of daily activities and may or may not be enjoyable (as I try to make this look as if it’s a segue).  Questions come up like: do I have enough samples and did the trucking company manage to pick up all the wine we are shipping here and did I remember to bring the invoice along for a delivery.

At the other end of the spectrum are the strategic choices such as how to handle delivery.  As you know we moved up a notch in our delivery approach.  We now have the wine-mobile zipping around town.  The previous approach was a pickup truck with coolers big enough to hold 3 cases of wine each.  (If anyone would like to buy such a cooler, please make me an offer.)  Another strategic issue is selection of sales people.  We have a list of criteria that includes needing to be a wine enthusiast.  We have come to realize that it is difficult and time consuming to develop relationships from a cold start, so there is substantial benefit to hiring people with relationships already in place.  Craig, in Tucson, has demonstrated how quickly he can get our products placed with his customer base.  If anyone has any ideas abut how to find more “Craigs”, please let us know!!!!

Cheers!

Richard and Laurie