Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 3:16 PM
Subject: Orangewood Wines News - 16

To Our Wine Aficionados,

Introduction

Two months ago I described how half of Laurie’s thyroid was successfully removed.  Follow up analysis indicated it was a papillary carcinoma, so this week Laurie had the remainder of her thyroid removed.  She is home safe and sound.  Meanwhile, the newsletter is coming out late again as I ponder how much personal stuff like that we should put into the newsletter and how the overall newsletter should be.  I’ve decided to keep the content the same but to ramble more - it seems to be my style! 

Box Score

New Restaurants/bars:      6

New Retail outlets:            2

New Sales people:            1

New Wineries:                  1

Contents

Upcoming Events

New Locations

New Winery - Vino Con Brio – Lodi, CA

New Sales Person - Becky Deininger

Rambling

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

These events are usually described on our web-site.

New Locations

            Miguel’s - Tucson

            Prescott Mining Company - Prescott

            Lloyd’s Liquors - Prescott

            Bloom - Scottsdale

            Creekers’ Territorial Bar and Grill - Cave Creek*

Tucson Country Club - Tucson

Ventana Canyon Golf Resort - Tucson

Sportsmans’ Fine Wine - Scottsdale

* Some of you may recall that Territorial Bar and Grill was the first restaurant to carry our wines.  As part of our due diligence we asked the owners of the place where we ate twice a week if they would carry our wines if we became a distributor.  Of course they said yes, and we started our wine business.  After three changes of ownership it became a biker bar selling mostly beer.  Another change of ownership recognizes the value of selling good wine, so Rob got us back in there.

New Winery - Vino Con Brio – Lodi, CA

            When I was in California in March I drove over to Vino Noceto in Plymouth to visit the owners, Jim and Suzy Gullett.  Jim and Suzy started us in the wine wholesale business and have continued to support and encourage us in many ways.  After leaving their winery I was primarily headed towards Chatom Vineyard in Calaveras County at the south end of the Sierra Foothills.  So I cruised down Route 49 - the road through gold country which we also call the Sierra Foothills.  I went through San Andreas, but couldn’t find anyone to blame.  After a while I turned southwest on route 88 and then route 12 towards Lodi.  These roads dropped me out of the foothills elevation down to the Central Valley and Interstate 5.  Mark and Jackie of Ninetta’s had suggested that while I was in California I should visit Vino Con Brio.  “They are wonderful people”, Mark said, so I really should carry their wine. As it happened I had been thinking about visiting Vino Con Brio, so with that small push… 

The Vino Con Brio winery is a family affair – they translate it to “Wine with Passion”.  Mike Matson is actually a dentist, but a farmer at heart (I’m always looking for the farmer because good grapes are the most important factor in producing good wine).  Mike’s wife, Renae, is primarily responsible for Amorosa, the Bed and Breakfast set in the middle of one of their vineyards.  Anne, their daughter, gave up a promising career in management to market the wines and generally help the winery become successful.  On my visit I met only with Renae, who put me up in their B&B (which was wonderful), led me on a tour of the winery and gave me wines to bring back to our tasting committee.  The committee was especially impressed with two of the wines which, after required licensing and so forth, will be arriving in Arizona later this week.  Look for the Pinot Grigio at Ninetta’s shortly.

New Sales Person - Becky Deininger

            Becky, who had been working for one of the major wine distributors in the Tucson area, moved to Phoenix and has joined Orangewood Wines.  Initially she is living in the South East part of the Valley, so will be focusing on that area with some accounts in Phoenix and Scottsdale.

Rambling

            Last week we had Betty Bennett from Chatom Vineyards visiting us.  Betty and her husband are escapees from dot.com businesses.  They used to live in the Bay Area with an escape home in Calaveras County.  Now they live in their escape home and Betty helps Gay Callan and the crew at Chatom.

We started selling the Chatom wines last year, but we rated our success as “developing”.  Good management practice indicates that “developing” requires a plan to fix the problem.  With the new releases (2002 for the red wines) coming available, it was time to implement a plan.  We introduced the new vintage together with incentives if restaurants sell the wines by the glass.  Betty came along to help with the roll out.  The wines tasted well, the sales folks enjoyed the help, we sold some wine and a good time was had by all.  We hope to be selling more of these wines, as they hold up well against more expensive ones. 

Happy Mothers’ Day to all of you, especially those of you who are mothers.

Cheers,

Richard and Laurie

Richard (newsletter writer) and Laurie Corles (editor)

Orangewood Consulting LLC

480.488.4794 or 602.410.3774