Sent:
Subject: Orangewood Wines News - 5
To
Our Wine Aficionados,
Introduction
Summer is here. Last year we sustained volume by
getting new accounts. That’s our hope for this year, too.
Box
Score
New restaurants: 0
New retail outlets: 0
New sales people: 0
New wineries: 1
Contents
Upcoming Events
May 15th - AJ’s, Arrowhead
May 21/22 - Red Kangaroo,
New Winery
Event Feedback
Cave Creek Wines
Red Kangaroo,
AZ Wine,
Carefree
Rambling
Upcoming
Events
May 15th - AJ’s @ Arrowhead,
I will be pouring wines from Chateau
Benoit (Muller-Thurgau and White Riesling) and
May 21/22 - Red Kangaroo,
Once again, Dick has crept onto the calendar of Roger and Injy.
We’re not sure what the format will be, but we will include the
New
Winery - Ventana Vineyards Winery,
I keep getting calls from wineries asking me to carry their
wines. After I explain how small we are, some of them continue to be
interested. One such is Ventana Vineyards. Their tasting room is in
Event
Feedback
Cave Creek Wines, AZ Wine (Carefree), Red Kangaroo (
I have been feeling a little jaded
writing recently. The newsletters seemed to be too much fill in the
blanks and Laurie was complaining, too (about the newsletter content that
is). So, I thought I would group these three events into one and skip
over the “I poured this” and so forth. Here goes…
All three of these locations have
the kind of liquor license that allows them to serve wine to drink “on
premise” as well as to sell bottles to be taken away for drinking
“off premise”. Up to now they have been mainly wine stores
with the capability to taste wines. All three are trying to move towards
being more of a neighborhood bar. These recent events give a hint as to how
they might turn out. All were well attended. The attendees were
good at drinking wine and showed interest in what I had to say about the wines
(this is not always the case!). In addition, because the attendance had
reached a critical mass, they became a social event in their own right.
Strangers began talking about their opinions of the wines and their wine
experiences and offering to show former strangers the etchings they had
upstairs. Outside of these events, the places are pretty quiet - but it
doesn’t have to be that way. Take a friend and stop by to see what
wines are available by the glass.
Rambling
I mentioned earlier that we thought the newsletter quality
was below par. Some of the letters were getting quite long, yet I was
unable to say all the things that I wanted to say. I was pondering this
as I listened to Ziggy Stardust singing that song
about Major Tom, the astronaut. We learn about the astronaut’s
launch, flight and disaster all in a few verses. Obviously, my prose is
not tight enough. I’ll be working on this.
On a different subject, Laurie and I decided we need some
professional help (hold on, I haven’t finished the sentence yet) selling
wine. We talked to two wine sales professionals who gave us some
suggestions about what may be needed. We have started by moving our
commission structure to be in line with industry norms and adding some
“on premise” by the glass discounts and “off premise”
volume discounts. Some of our wineries encourage this by subsidizing such
discounts, but we had not taken advantage of such encouragement so far.
We also needed to ensure that we had a sufficient supply of wine for
hardworking sales people to sell. We hope this month’s addition of
Ventana achieves that.
Cheers!
Richard
and Laurie