Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 7:13 PM
Subject: Orangewood Wines Newsletter - Volume 3, Issue 6 - February 12th, 2007

Introduction

The high season is upon us - Barrett Jackson car auction, FBR Phoenix Open golf tournament, Arabian Horse show, 10 feet of snow in New York, 70 degree weather, are just some of the reasons that natives and visitors in Arizona are here and in an optimistic wine buying mood.  This is keeping us busy

Box Score

New Restaurants:         3

Contents

Wines from California’s Historic Sierra Foothills - Event Feedback

New Restaurants

Sales People

Rambling

Wines from California’s Historic Sierra Foothills – Event Feedback

Dick choreographed this second annual event and kept the good things good (location, size, food, wines) and improved some of the areas in need of improvement  (ticket distribution, auxiliary activities).  We had most of our Sierra Foothills wineries represented, and if you attended you know these are all fun people.  From my perspective I hung around and chatted with customers, tasted some wine, munched some great food.  This is a tough job.  Before the event Justin Boeger (Boeger Winery) demonstrated that he can squeeze into the back of my ’94 Celica while I and Jim Gullett (Vino Noceto) enjoyed the front.  Not to be outdone, the next day Ryan Taylor (Mt Vernon Winery), demonstrated that he can fit his 6’ 7”+ frame in there behind Laurie and I.  In addition to the event itself, we did some drive withs.  Ryan and I were out on the Friday and were held up by the Hashknife Pony Express as it reached its destination in Scottsdale. They had brought thousands of pieces of first class mail 200 miles from Holbrook, AZ to arrive just in time for us.  We also took them along to D’Vine in Mesa, Epicurean in Scottsdale, AJ’s and AZ Wine for tasting events.  More areas for improvement have been noted for the 3rd annual, and your suggestions are welcome and will be duly noted.

Sales People

We didn’t recruit any new sales people this month, nor did we lose any, but we did make some adjustments.  Szymon, who has been doing an outstanding job got recruited to lead the local distribution for a New York importer of fine Italian Wines.  I am delighted he is getting a promotion and that Orangewood was able to provide a stepping stone in his career, and pleased with the new accounts he has established for us.  We are trying to have Kelly and Diane cover these, as well as their existing accounts.  Please bear with us while we get this working.  Always feel free to call me at 602-410-3774 if we are not meeting your needs.

New Restaurants

Joey’s California Bistro

610 East Bell Road
Phoenix, AZ 85022

(602) 789-8044

 

Michael’s at the Citadel

8700 E Pinnacle Peak Rd #115
Scottsdale, AZ 85255

(480) 515-2575

 

VinTabla

2890 E. Skyline Drive, Suite 19

Tucson, AZ 85718
(520) 577-6210

Rambling

When someone visits a winery or is given a special bottle of wine or reads about the wine in a magazine, they will often want to see if they can buy the wine close to where they live.  In today’s internet world it takes but a moment to find the winery website and see if the wine is available locally.  For those not web savvy, they may instead ask their favorite wine store to find the wine for them and most of them use the web as their source of information.  When the website does not answer the question, it’s usually possible to call the winery directly, but it seems that rarely happens.  I did a survey to see which of the websites of the 30 wineries we represent show whether their wine is distributed in Arizona by Orangewood Wines …and found that of the 30 wineries we represent, 29 have websites, 10 indicate that the wine is distributed in Arizona and 7 name Orangewood Wines as the distributor.  These are the wineries I get phone calls about.  I am always happy to receive these calls and to fulfill special orders or rush over with samples to taste.  It is no surprise to me that our top selling wines have Orangewood contact information easily accessible.

 

 

From all of us at Orangewood Wines

 

 

Richard (newsletter writer) and Audrey Graffeo (Laurie’s mom and guest editor)

Orangewood Wines