Subject: Orangewood Wines Newsletter - Volume 3, Issue 31 – September 22, 2009

Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 2:46pm

Introduction

Today’s high temperature in Phoenix was 105F. Predicted low tonight is 79F. It’s getting chilly start drinking red wine again. Laurie and I and 18 other folk are taking some to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon where the temperature range is predicted to be 72F and 37F. Meanwhile it’s time to roll the presses on the Orangewood Wines newsletter…

Box Score

New Restaurants: 3

Contents

New Restaurants

Wine Varietal of the Month

Rambling

New Restaurants

Black Bart’s

2760 East Butler Avenue,

Flagstaff, AZ 86004

(928) 779-3142

Mirabel Club

37100 North Mirabel Club Drive,

Scottsdale, AZ 85262

(480) 595-2545

Tinderbox Kitchen

34 South San Francisco Street,

Flagstaff, AZ 86001

(928) 226-8400

Wine Varietal of the Month – Sangiovese

In 1987 Laurie and I were visiting Tuscany. We were being given a tour of Villa Vignamaggio, that had been used as the location for the filming of Much Ado About Nothing. It was a hot day in late August and I was tired and dropped back from the group. I noticed a bunch of black grapes that looked to me just like the purple table grapes that I see in the l at my local supermarket. With that kind of taste in mind, I glanced around surreptitiously then picked one. I popped it my mouth, bit down and POW!!***!! My eye went wide my mouth was full of surprise and delight. I had often wondered how wonderful wine was made from pleasant but otherwise uninspiring fruit. Now I knew, the winemakers don’t sell this fruit in supermarkets. Thinking back I realize that this grape was one of Sangiovese clones. Sangiovese – san-gee-oh-vay-say. Many Americans say “vase” instead of “vay-say” at the end and they don’t wave their arms about when they say it. I think they are missing some of the fun of Italian wine. Sangiovese is a varietal, that is, it’s a type of grape. Clones are subtypes. Sangiovese is widely grown in Italy and predominant in Tuscany where it is the primary component of Chianti. Every time you drink Chianti, you are drinking 90% sangiovese. In different regions the different climates, soils and clones allow this same general varietal to be Brunello, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and others. In the United States, sangiovese is called sangiovese. It is not grown much, it’s finicky and requires more that the usual amount of care and attention both to grow and to turn into great wine. Back in 2001, when Orangewood started distributing wine, we only had sangiovese. It happened to be our favorite wine. Vino Noceto was and is the grower and winemaker. They specialize in making Italian style sangiovese wine. As a wine it is a light wine. It is typically fruity with lots of berry fruit. It works well with pasta and pizza and what else do you need? One of our early customers told me that he used the wine to wean his father-in-law off white wine. The fruitiness and easy drinking were like training wheels. Not all sangioveses are so friendly, but it is a fun varietal that you should explore.

Orangewood wines has sangiovese in inventory from

Chatom Vineyards – Calaveras County, CA

Vino Noceto – Amador County, CA

Young’s Vineyards – Amador County, CA

Rambling

You probably thought I had rambled enough. This time you would be wrong. The season is upon us. Usually the season starts with major trade shows and for the past 7 years or so Orangewood Wines participated in events along with 9, 7 or 5 other distributors. This year, the leader of the combined trade event has closed down his distributorship leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves.

Looking back on the events and at other distributors’ events I realize that I am less than happy with them. A lot of our customers are unable to make the date and those that do have far too much to drink. So with a few exceptions these events have been unproductive. So this year I am trying something different. We have invited a few of our wineries to come along to a series of events across the state. This means that attendees have a choice of time and place and when they get there they will be able to focus on a handful of wineries. If this works we will be doing it again in January with another selection of wineries. For this series of events the summary details are:

Monday, October 19 – Flagstaff

Tuesday, October 20 – Cave Creek

Wednesday, October 21 – Mesa

Thursday, October 22 - Tucson

The wineries that will be represented are: Apolloni Vineyards (Willamette, OR), Arbios Cellars/Praxis Cellars (Alexander Valley, CA), Kestrel Vintners (Yakima Valley, WA), Riverbench (Santa Maria, CA) and Vino Noceto (Amador, CA). 4 in Wine Imports will also present a selection of their German wines, and Orangewood will have a few bottles previewing new vintages from other wineries in the portfolio.

For those of you who have followed Orangewood for a while, you understand how we think. If the big guys do something one way, there must be a better way for us!

The Rambler rambles on…

From all of us at Orangewood Wines,

Richard (newsletter writer), Laurie (editor) and Jim Wallace (another editor)

Orangewood Wines