Subject: Orangewood Wines Newsletter - Volume 3, Issue 15 - December 23rd, 2007

Sent: Sunday December 23 2007, 8:45 AM

Holiday Edition

Best Wishes to you for your festival of choice as we approach the end of 2007.  As we have just mailed off Christmas cards to some of our European friends, I know once again we are behind with preparations.  Maybe next year!  After wading through many extensive Christmas letters, some of them in size 8 font, I decided that one of my gifts to you would be a condensed version of this newsletter.  I have left the box score in place and will ramble just a little.

The new restaurants and wine outlets can be found on our website at www.orangewoodwines.com where the second present can also be found – access to the data sheets for each of the wines in our portfolio.  At least those wineries whose names begin with A – F are there, and the rest will be showing up before the New Year.  The wines available from each winery are now “clickable” and link to a PDF document.

For those of you anxious for a year end summary and comment on market conditions, here we go!  Laurie, I and our horses are all in fine shape.  No new illnesses; perhaps a few extra pounds.  Orangewood Wines is also in fine shape.  Recruiting sales people continues to be the challenge, but as our current sales people become more seasoned; we continue to be a thorn in the side of our competitors.  We survived a very poor summer and are coming out ahead as the year ends.  The wine business is a good canary in the coal mine indicator for the general market; we just have to figure out what ruffled feathers mean.  It is really easy to make self-fulfilling prophesies, but suffice it to say there is a lot of nervousness in the market.  With a Presidential election year coming up, however, I predict a lot of people drinking early and drinking often.

Box Score

New Restaurants:                         7

New Retail/Wine Bar Outlets:        2

New Sales People:                       0

New Winery:                                1          Ancien Wines

 

 

From all of us at Orangewood Wines,

 

 

Richard (newsletter writer) and Laurie (editor)

Orangewood Wines