Sent:
Subject: Orangewood Wines News - 7
To
Our Wine Aficionados,
Introduction
We always expect a major breakthrough, but instead it’s
blocking and tackling that gets us a yard or two at a time. We’ll
let you be the referees on our progress.
Box
Score
New restaurants: 2
New retail outlets: 1
New sales people: 0
New wineries: 0
Contents
Upcoming Events
July 7th
Nello’s
July 17th AJ’s, Arrowhead
July 20th Cheuvront’s,
July 23rd Epicurean Wine,
New Restaurants and Retail outlets
Tonto Bar and Grill - Cave Creek
Cartwright’s - Cave Creek
phoenixwine -
Event Feedback
AJ’s, Arrowhead
Red Kangaroo,
Nello’s,
AZ Wine, Carefree - Wines of Sierra Foothills
Rambling
Upcoming
Events
July 7th
Nello’s
The event this month, on the regular first Wednesday schedule, is a charity
affair. Admission is $10. Wines from Orangewood and other distributors wil be available to
taste. The featured charity is a horse rescue of adopted PMU mares and
foals. When recent medical studies showed that hormone replacement
therapy for post-menopausal women was not a good idea, many of the horses that
were providing the hormones were out of a job. Support for some of the
rescued horses will be supported by $5 of the admission fee. Apropos of
the event, we will be pouring wines that have a horse’s head illustrated
on the label - i.e., RustRidge.
July 17th AJ’s
Arrowhead
Bill and I will be pouring something here. Archie has been quietly
selling the Frank Family Chardonnay and should have the Cabernet Sauvignon
available also. I expect that these will be available to taste.
It’s a good opportunity to try these wines.
July 20th Cheuvront’s,
Phoenix - 6pm - 8pm - Free - Central opposite the Phoenix Library
Dick will be pouring “Summer wines”.
If you haven’t seen The Dick in action, get along to this attractive new
wine bar close to downtown
July 23rd Epicurean
Wine,
Alison and I will be presenting the Ventana Vineyards wines at this popular
location. We have not been there for a while. Have you?
New
Restaurants and Retail Outlets
Tonto Bar and Grill - Cave Creek
Tonto Bar and Grill is a fine restaurant in Cave Creek. They prepare and serve
excellent food and wine in a professional and friendly manner. It has
been a favorite of ours for a long time.
I first tried to sell wine there in 2001. I had one type of wine from one
winery (Noceto Sangiovese Riserva). They were a little surprised at my
modest “book” but liked the wine. I didn’t manage to
sell any. Since moving to Cave Creek I have been acquainting Eric (one of
the owners) with our wines. Finally they are carrying the Ventana Chardonnay
and Due Amici as their special for July. Eric spent some time working in
the
Cartwright’s - Cave Creek
Eric also is co-owner of Cartwright’s, so the July special extends to
this location. One of the neat things about Cartwright’s is
appetizer special of the 30 cent oysters on the half shell, available at the
bar. Hey, Laurie, what are our plans this week?
phoenixwine -
Tom Hamilton has long been the owner of a virtual wine store, a website and
delivery truck were the extent of its existence.
Now he has made it bricks and mortar. If you head west on Mercer (From
Scottsdale Rd just North of Shea) the road swings south at
Event
Feedback
Cave Creek Coffee Company
This was a convenient tasting, just a couple of miles from home. Several
well known faces showed up (Thanks Larry and Hugh.) It brightened up the
event. In addition to youse guys, Archie from
AJ’s in Arrowhead was there. He already carried 4 of the 5 wines we
were tasting, but he also brought Donna from the
Pinnacle Peak AJ’s. It seems that the wine list at CCCC has been
pretty static, so we sold quite a bit to people who were tired of the current
selections. Jim will be trying to get on the permanent list now that
he’s back from
Taste of Sedona 2004
I drove up to Jerome for lunch and delivery to the Asylum before this
event. I had been hoping to get Paula (the wine guy at Asylum) to try the
Frivolo. She wasn’t there but I left her a case anyway. (She
was at the event in Sedona and she tried and liked and bought it.) After
lunch I headed down to Los Abrigados. The event
was held down by the creek, which was good because the water and breeze offset
the 94 degree temperature. Jeff the Cellar Master at the Basha’s up
there was setting up, so I got to pick my spot first. I think some
distributors view these events as a way to fix inventory. I view it as a
way to build demand from actual consumers. We had only 3 wines - all
donated by Ventana - and the consensus was that we were pouring the best
wines. This was supported by Jeff a couple of days later when I got an
emergency call for more wine. The local restaurants had booths which
allowed them to showcase their culinary expertise and there was a decent band
that had some guests dancing. You might consider going next year.
Red Kangaroo,
Diane and Gary had a singer, as well as yours truly, as entertainment. We
introduced several of the Ventana wines and the positive reception resulted in
placement of the Pinot Noir, Due Amici (Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon blend)
and the Gewurztraminer. This is a particularly fine Gewurz.
It is sold out at the winery and soon will be in
The place was crowded and it was fun to be there. Rob and I are making
this one of the places we hang out. A place to sit and
talk and try wines and distract Diane from her work. Swing by on
your way home. If you catch us there you can try the wines, too.
Rambling
So why do people buy a particular wine? How does a
wine become an easy choice? Let me count the ways (and remember I’m
rambling here). The wines we carry are almost exclusively
“unknown” wines from small vineyards. Why would people buy
these wines? In many cases, the buyers have visited the winery and
enjoyed them there. Seeing the label and drinking the wine evokes happy
memories of the visit. Sometimes the wine was a gift and subsequent
purchases remind them of the giver. Of course in both these cases it only
works if we are talking about good wines. We are not going to spend money
to repeat a less than tasty experience. Once we have someone enjoying the
wine, if they share it with their friends then we have some secondary people
buying the wine to repeat the experience of drinking the wine and hearing about
the vineyard from their friends. These are the easy sales. For
others we are trying to share a story about the winery. As distributors
we will share “the story” with the wine store sales staff or
restaurant wait staff. We also like to do the wine tastings as this
allows us to pass on “The Story” directly to customers as well as
spending more time with the staff.
How is this working for us? We started with the Vino Noceto winery
because we loved the wine after a friend sent us half a case (Thanks again
Pam). We had ordered their wine for several years before visiting the
winery. Our enthusiasm, together with a few people who had visited the
Sierra Foothills, has led to quite a few restaurants selling the wine.
Over the 3 years that we have been selling these wines, we have built up
something of a local following. Now we are trying to do the same thing
for other wineries. We sure hope so!
Cheers!
Richard
and Laurie