Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 6:06 PM
Subject: Orangewood Wines Newsletter - Volume 3, Issue 5

Introduction

A Happy New Year to you all.  Next major item to look out for is the Second Annual Sierra Foothills wine tasting.  This is on February 1^st at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute.  Mark your calendars!

Box Score

New Sales Person:      1

New Wineries:              2

New Restaurants:         1

Contents

Wines from California’s Historic Sierra Foothills

New Sales Person – Diane Davey

New Wineries

New Restaurants

Rambling

Wines from California’s Historic Sierra Foothills

Our portfolio of wines includes 10 wineries from the Sierra Foothills.  On February 1^st, at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, owners, winemakers and/or other representatives will be in town to talk about their wines and give you a chance to try them.  All our wineries are small, family owned wineries specializing in hand crafted and delicious wines.  Scottsdale Culinary Institute is hosting and catering this event.

Thursday, February 1^st at SCI Sky Bridge Campus.

3:30 to 4:30 Trade only tasting

4:30 to 7:30 General Admission

We will be giving invitations to our customers over the next two or three weeks.  For the general public we are printing a small number of tickets which may be purchased at Scottsdale Culinary Institute, Epicurean Wines in Scottsdale and D’Vine in Mesa.

The following wineries will be represented

Amador County: Vino Noceto, Wilderotter, Young’s

Calaveras County: Chatom

El Dorado County: Boeger, David Girard, Latcham-Granite

Placer County: Hyatt -Baumbach, Mt. Vernon

New Sales Person – Diane Davey

Diane Davey (with husband, Gary) owned and ran the Red Kangaroo in North Scottsdale at Pinnacle Peak and Miller.  When they decided enough was enough I tried to convince her to sell wine for us.  My sales pitch was slow acting because it took 2 years before she came back and said yes.  As a buyer of wines she is well aware of how wine sales people operate and she is developing her own style incorporating the good things she learned.  She will be focusing on what I think of as the North 101 corridor.  Diane was born in Chipping Norton so she has the added skill of being able to understand English!

New Wineries

Buttonwood Farm and Winery

I get calls all the time from wineries asking us to carry their wines, but something about Buttonwood caught my ear.  Already established in Arizona, their primary contact at another distributor is retiring and they were looking for a replacement.  Shipping of wine, drinking of wine, lots of emails and phone calls later, a first shipment will be arriving in the next two weeks.  General comment from our sales staff – it’s a no-brainer.  Feedback from customers who already have the wine – that’s great. 

Artistic Wines / Destino Wines

Classico Distribution, one of the 100 rival distributors in Arizona (yes there are currently 101 of us), has decided to focus on Italian imports and to forgo its small California portfolio.  The owner was kind enough to suggest that we might be interested in continuing representation for this group.  Artistic Wines is like a marketing cooperative of several small winemakers in Napa and Sonoma.  Chris Calkins leads the cooperative and owns Destino Wines.  Destino (“The journey is the destination”) makes small quantities of elegant Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.  We’ll have supplies of Destino in the next two weeks.

New Restaurants

Brix Restaurant and Wine Bar

413 N San Francisco St
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
(928) 213-1021

Rambling

I can’t let the New Year slip by without commenting on the past year and making predictions for the new one.  Orangewood Wines continued to grow last year – by 50%.  The previous year we doubled.  There is no question now that I have messed up a perfectly good hobby.  I expect us to continue to grow this year and I plan on 30%.  We continue to improve our coverage of the state and to represent wineries that are small and unique in their own ways.  We enjoy all of them.  Greg, our first driver, is now 86 and has been delivering wine for nearly 4 years.  Xandria joined us last year as our second driver.  I don’t expect any more drivers in the Phoenix area this year.  I will help out until that point is reached.

The one problem that Laurie and I wrestle with is that we are part of the critical day to day operation.  The administration bookkeeping is sufficiently complex that Laurie hates when I “help” because I make too many mistakes.  Training someone else seems unrealistic, but we continue to scratch out heads despite the splinters.  To get a break, we are planning to close the business for two weeks from July 9th – 20th.

From all of us at Orangewood Wines

Richard (newsletter writer) and Laurie Corles (editor)

Orangewood Wines