Sent: Sunday August 12th, 2007, 8:05 PM
Subject: Orangewood Wines Newsletter - Volume 3, Issue 11 – August 12th,
2007
Introduction
Summer time is when we have a chance to take some time with
our customers and to look for new ones. It’s also a good time to review
our territorial coverage and continue the apparently never ending task of
building our sales team.
Coming up on September 9th in Scottsdale
and September 10th in Tucson
are our cooperative trade events. Working with other distributors we are
showcasing our portfolio to a large number of customers and prospective
customers. If you have not received an invitation please let me
know.
Box Score
New
Restaurants:
2
New Retail
Outlets: 0
New Sales
People: 1
Contents
New
Restaurants
New
Sales Person
Rambling
New Restaurants
Café Terra Cotta
3500 Sunrise
Drive,
Tucson, AZ
85718
(520) 577-8100
Forest Highlands Golf Club
657 Forest Highlands
Flagstaff, AZ
86001
(928) 525-5200
New Sales Person
Vickie Gordon
One of my early mentors in the wine
business is Tom Hamilton, who owns a wine store close to Scottsdale Rd and Shea Blvd in Scottsdale. It’s called phoenixwine.
He had the opportunity to put one and one together when Vickie asked him how
she could get into the wine distribution business a day before I asked him if
he knew any potential sales people. Thank you, Tom, for doing the
arithmetic. Vickie has worked in the hospitality business industry in Chicago and Phoenix
for several years and she loves wine. She will be focusing on Northeast
Phoenix and Northern Scottsdale.
Rambling
When I was growing up in England tea making was a ritual
that involved boiling water, warming a teapot, putting tea leaves in the pot
and adding the water. The tea would brew for perhaps 5 minutes before
being poured over a small amount of milk in a teacup. The milky brown
liquid was drunk morning noon and night and especially at tea time. Note
there was no mention of tea bags or tea strainers. As a result, care was
needed as the tea was drunk to avoid getting a mouthful of tea leaves, with a
side effect that a little tea was left at the bottom with all the tea leaves in
it. My grandmother was an expert at swirling these remains, pouring the
liquid in the saucer and leaving most of the tea leaves in random patterns
around the inside of the cup. She was also an expert in reading the tea
leaves. “I see a squirrel, a cup and a cloud.” And she would
explain the significance of what she saw. Looking at a month of sales and
trying to understand what they mean is sort of like reading tea leaves.
As with every summer our sales are down – the big spenders move to cooler
climates and everyone else drinks beer – but this year I think I am seeing a
move to less expensive wines. I think those buying wines are dropping
their price point a notch. For example, instead of spending up to $25,
they now spend up to $20. Is this a leading indicator of slowing economic
activity?
A more specific ramble started just over a week ago.
Laurie and I sent our horses off to summer camp in Prescott (thank you, Lisa), and we headed up
to Steamboat Springs to attend the Wine Festival there. Two of our
wineries were represented. Reggie Hammond, the wine maker at Ventana Vineyards, was
there. He shared with me some of the plans for the winery (investments in
the facilities) and a taste of the 2005 Pinot Noir (yum). Our other
winery, Tolosa, was represented
by the local sales person, but I still got to try their Late Harvest
Chardonnay. We continued our trip to Colorado with visits to our friends Sheila
and Tim who showed us how rabbit ears look without snow on them, and to Deb and
John who, like us, started their own business and thus we rarely get to see
them.
The rambler rambles on…
From
all of us at Orangewood Wines,
Richard
(newsletter writer) and Laurie (editor)
Orangewood
Wines