Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 7:39 PM
Subject: Orangewood Wine News - 22
To
Our Wine Aficionados,
Introduction
One of the guiding principles for the growth of this
business was that we would minimize our costs and overheads. As we grew
various things broke. A recent example of this was deliveries.
Greg, our now 85-year-old delivery guy, is very happy with his Scion xB
delivering around the Phoenix
area. Two weeks ago, however, we had to rent a bigger vehicle and try to
get a bunch of deliveries done in Tucson.
What with pick up from the warehouse, traffic on Interstate10 and timing
constraints of our customers, things were not so much fun any more. So,
what we need is someone like Greg, who lives in Tucson and would be happy to spend a few
hours a day, several days a week delivering wine to our customers there.
Greg is just perfect because he had been a sales guy before he retired and
understands the value of customer relationships – he adds to the
satisfaction our customers have dealing with us. Greg loves driving and
was bored watching soap operas. So, if you know someone who fits this
profile please have them call me.
Since the last newsletter I have visited our new wineries,
Blackjack Ranch, Davis Bynum, Barlow and Strata. The rambling in this
issue is extra long (groan from Laurie the editor) and covers those visits.
Box
Score
New Restaurants/bars: 3
New Retail
outlets: 2
New Sales
people: +1-1
New
Wineries: 0
Contents
New Sales People
Szymon Piechaczek
New Locations
McMahon’s Prime
Steakhouse, Tucson
Montana Avenue, Tucson
El Encanto, Cave Creek
AJ’s Fine Food at Pinnacle Peak,
Scottsdale
Beverage House II, Tucson
Upcoming Events
Rambling
New
Sales People
Szymon Piechaczek
Szymon, he says that we
should call him call him Simon, is from Poland. He left there soon
after the Berlin
wall fell down and has been in the hospitality business
ever since. He is enthusiastic about wines and has an excellent
pallet. He continues with his evening job at the Royal Palms Hotel and
will be focusing on restaurants along the Camelback Corridor. I have long
been dismayed at our failure to have a presence there and am confident that we
will see our wines at the fine restaurants and hotels in that area soon.
New
Locations
McMahon’s Prime Steakhouse, 2959 N. Swan Road, Tucson
Sometimes the name of a
restaurant is insufficiently obscure so you can guess what kind of food is
served. McMahon’s is one such.
Montana Avenue, 6390 E Grant Road, Tucson
On the other
hand…Montana Avenue,
another fine restaurant from Fox Restaurant Concepts, will have Southwestern
style food and several of our wines on their menu. What I like about the
Fox restaurants is that they really design the restaurant. They have a
concept, design the physical location and food and wine offerings in line with
the concept and then train the staff a lot.
El Encanto, Cave Creek
This place has
long been a favorite destination of ours, but wine with Mexican food?
Over the years this restaurant has had projects to improve in all kinds of
ways. It seemed that wine became a more serious part of their offerings
over the last year or two, so I tried to get the attention of their
buyer. Bill Nelson has owned this place forever, but his daughter,
Christine, now is very active in running the place. I e-mailed her and
had given up on hearing back, but then I got a response. A little more
e-mailing led me to learn that they do taste new wines every month. I
went along expecting to taste Bill and Christine, but found that this was a
public event. After I got over my surprise and survived knocking a bottle
of wine on the floor, (thank you Laurie for zipping along with a replacement)
the evening went well and finished with an order. Great food, great wine
(now) and great horned owls nesting in the palm trees, what more could you
want?
AJ’s Fine Food at Pinnacle Peak, Scottsdale
Yet another AJ’s
succumbs to the charms of Orangewood Wines.
Beverage House II, Tucson
It turns out there are quite
a few of these in Southern Arizona. This
is the second one we have signed up.
Upcoming
Events
Dick is organizing a Sierra Foothills tasting
event at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute. We think all our wineries
will come along – we are hoping for owners or wine makers or other fun
“talking heads” to represent their wines and wineries to our
customers and selected members of the public. The primary event is the
evening of February 2nd – Groundhog Day. Only those who
don’t go back to sleep after seeing their shadow will be there. So
how are we selecting members of the public, you might ask? Well loyal readers,
the list includes you. Send me an e-mail and I will mail a ticket to you
a couple of weeks before the event.
Other events are often described on our website.
http://www.orangewoodwines.com/wine-events.htm
Rambling
In need of some of the Blackjack Ranch wine and not
being able to get the logistics together quickly to get it here, Craig and I
borrow an SUV (thank you, Jim and Karen) and head towards California. I have a laptop perched on
my lap because we also need to do some portfolio brainstorming. By the
time we have our thinking done we are at 49 Palms – wow,
that drive went by quickly. We get to Blackjack Ranch in the mid
afternoon. The sign outside has a subtitle “As seen in the movie
Sideways”. Roger Wisted, the owner, told
us later that the sign paid for itself within 20 minutes. Roger tastes us
through most of his wines and talks about how he got into the business, funded
by his invention of California Blackjack. He also tells us about why he
invented it. He had moved to Los
Angeles when gambling became legal. He says he
spent 2 years taking money off people who had no clue about playing
poker. We notice that Roger has not only a poker face but also very
restrained body language, he has trouble stopping his eyes twinkling, however -
maybe dark glass fixes that problem! He noticed that many people came
into the Casinos, but not seeing a Blackjack table turned around and
left. This led to his invention and introduction of California Blackjack,
to a new career signing license agreements as fast as he could and then to the
Blackjack Ranch winery. He tells us that his Wilkening
Reserve Chardonnay is sourced from Laura Wilkening’s
vineyard just over there. The vineyards have been planted for 18 years
– and Laura is 90 years old. She planted them when she was over 70
– Roger commented on her optimism for longevity and the wine
business.
At the Arizona
State fair this year one
of the groups appearing was ZZ Top. We were invited to see them by Frank
and Mary, long time readers of this newsletter. We had a great
time. Frank told me that he noticed we now represent the Davis Bynum
Winery and how they had visited the winery several times. Great wine
and a great addition to our portfolio, Frank said. A week later, Laurie
and I fly over to Napa and drive an hour and a
half to the West bank of the Russian
River to find the
winery. We meet with Hampton Bynum, who guides us through the vineyards
and points out other notable sites. Further up the river is the Rochioli, vineyard which had been selling its Pinot Noir
grapes to Gallo for its Hearty Burgundy program until Hampton offered nearly 3 times as much.
Hamp also talks about monoculture and shows us the
Mediterranean garden with all kinds of fruit and vegetables growing
there. We sampled\ the pineapple guava.
The vineyards and wines are fully organic. We learn how they have plants
more attractive to the sharpshooter than the grapevines, as their approach to
solving that pesty problem. When Davis Bynum
first bought the property the buildings included a hop kiln which is now the
winery. I thought I could detect a little hoppiness
in there, but I’m sure I was imagining it. Hamp
tells us how the first crush was when he was in his 20’s. He was
trying to get everything done all at the same instant. Licenses came the
same day as the electric power was put on a day before the first grapes were
brought in which was when the roof was being tarred. The tar caught fire
so there was smoke everywhere. Robert Stemmler,
their consulting winemaker at the time, was going around saying “This is
no way to make wine!” But, when the smoke cleared, as Hamp says, it apparently was the way, and continues to be
– though I don’t think they have tar fires every harvest. Hamp takes us and a bottle of the Davis Bynum Russian River
Pinot Noir along to his wife’s nearby restaurant. Nit’s Thai
Creations is on River Rd
just east of Guerneville. We sit on the patio overlooking the Russian River. Even though the restaurant
has been open only 6 months, it is winning awards and we soon learned
why. The Pinot Noir complements it well. After lunch we return to
the tasting room where Richard tastes us through some of the wines that we are
unfamiliar with. Ritchie, as everyone calls him, had been in the
entertainment business for many years. He had been tour manager for
several well know groups – including ZZ Top!
My final visits are on Monday, after Laurie has returned to
her day job. My daughter Debby comes along to visit Barlow Vineyards
at the North end of the Silverado trail, almost in Calistoga. Entrance is
through an automatic gate key code is ***** (code removed by editor). We
go across a small wooden bridge and up the hill through the vineyards.
Barr Smith’s father and mother have built a house here. Barr Smith
and his father, Warren, are there to greet us and explain how they had bought
the vineyard and continue to supply grapes to a number of well known
wineries. One of the winemakers suggested that they make wine out of the
grapes for themselves. They did, with great results, and this led to a scramble
for licenses and facilities and so forth. I asked how they selected the
name Barlow. Barr’s full name is Warren Barlow Smith Jr. Say
no more.
Debby and I take the Oak Knoll crossover from Silverado
Trail to Route 29. West of 29 is where the Strata Vineyards are
located. We are there to meet Dave Cofran and
Amy Downs. The vineyards and winery are not marked and it surprises Debby
to find that it is on her 5 mile running route. Orangewood has been
selling their 2001 Merlot, but after a great review in one of the Wine
magazines, they are sold out. Dave is just back from scuba diving in the Philippines, so his body clock is somewhere west
of Hawaii…but nonetheless he gets us to
taste the 2001 against the 2002 – which will be in Arizona shortly. Then we taste the
2003 and 2004 – both still in the barrel. Finally we try the 2005,
5 weeks in the barrel undergoing malolactic
fermentation. Dave used to supply these grapes to Silver Oak for their
Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, but after Silver Oak purchased the Twomey Vineyards there was more than enough Merlot for
blending. The winery is shared by three neighbors. One of them,
O’Brien’s, has a wine called Seduction. Dave shows us the
candlelit setup used to taste the wines. Given the hard concrete floor it
isn’t clear who would be seducing whom.
So, we reach the end of another prolonged ramble. How
many of you made it this far? It always amazes me that for all the length of
the newsletter I really can only give the merest sketch of what I
learned.
Happy
Thanksgiving!
Richard
and Laurie
Richard
(newsletter writer) and Laurie Corles (editor)
Orangewood
Consulting LLC
480.488.4794
or 602.410.3774
http://www.orangewoodwines.com
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