Newsletter 13

Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 8:00 AM
Subject: Wine at Orangewood Consulting - 13 - and reminder

To our Wine Aficionados,

This is a little earlier than I had in mind for a Newsletter, but I wanted to remind you all of you of the upcoming event at the Duck and Decanter. It’s this coming Thursday 6:00pm – 8:00pm. $10 is the cost. All the Orangewood wines will be available for tasting and purchase. I also plan on bringing a surprise wine along - this is a preview of a Noceto wine that should be available in a month or so. When I stopped by Duck and Decanter to look at their advertising of the event at the store, I saw that you also get a coupon for a free “Nooner”. Before you get too excited, their “Nooner” is a lunch sandwich. If you want to come along you can show up whenever you want and stay for as long as you want. Based on the feedback we have been getting, there may be a few of you showing up. We look forward to seeing you.

The remaining content of this newsletter is as follows:

Sales

Restaurants

Rancho Pinot (New)

Pizzeria Bianco

Richardson's

Territorial Bar and Grill

Wine Bars

Duck and Decanter

Retail Outlets

Epicurean Wine Service (Additional wine)

Portfolio

Marinda Park

Feedback

Sales

Restaurants

Rancho Pinot (New) 6208 North Scottsdale Road

Another new restaurant! Rancho Pinot is not the cheapest restaurant in town, but it does fine food and wine and is worth the visit. Tom Kaufman is the owner. I have been talking to him for a while, but he is not easy to find. The best way is to chase around between Rancho Pinot and Nonni’s asking if anyone has seen him and looking for his beige Mercedes. Apparently quite a few of the staff at Rancho Pinot are Zinfandel freaks so they have bought some of the RustRidge Zinfandel to “see how it goes”. To me this means that the wine will not show up on the menu. If you want to drink it you are going to have to ask. Say “I heard that you have some of that scrumptious RustRidge Zinfandel here…”

If you don’t know where Rancho Pinot is, they say that it’s at “SW Corner of Lincoln and Scottsdale Rd” and you can actually work your way through to it from the AJ’s Plaza, but maybe a better description is that it’s about 20 yards north of Restaurant Hapa.

Pizzeria Bianco (623 E Adams - in Heritage Square)

Pizzeria Bianco is doing a fine job of selling the Noceto Riserva at their next door location “Bar Bianco”. This is where you wait while waiting for a table at the pizza place. I made a delivery this week just before opening time to find all the waiters looking at a catalog with old cars for sale. The next day I drove Laurie’s 1966 Corvair down. I went in and while the hostess was telling me that they did not open until 5, Chris and all the waiters came out to climb all over the car. I’m thinking about used car sales as the next venture!

Territorial Bar and Grill (37645 N Cave Creek Rd)

They are starting to serve the Noceto Sangiovese in significant quantities. Charlie is buying by the half case now, rather than the 2 or 3 bottles a time that he was before. In addition he has “commissioned” me to prepare his wine list. If you go there you can admire my handiwork and enjoy some wine.

Wine Bars

Cave Creek Coffee Company

What? A coffee company selling wine! David and Anita Anderson had spare time on their hands and nothing to sell the crowd in the afternoons and evenings – so they got themselves a license and will be opening for business “before the end of the month”. (Way before the next WOC anyway) They are sampling most of our wines and so far has taken delivery of some Noceto Sangiovese (Normale).

Duck and Decanter (1651 E Camelback)

I forgot to mention that Michael is serving the Normale by the glass.

Retail Outlets

One of the questions that I was asked in the last month made it clear that there is some confusion about wine bars and retail outlets. A retail outlet is one whose license allows them only to sell wine. No consumption on the premises is permitted. A wine bar at least as I describe them have a license that allow them to sell wine for consumption on the premises AND to sell it to take away. That’s the legal side. In practice the wine bars vary from being a retail outlet with a chance to taste wine to a bar with the chance to take wine out. It’s a matter of emphasis. Pricing will vary from one end of the spectrum to the other. The primarily retail outlet wine bar will price low and may have a $5 corkage fee (to drink it there). The primarily wine bar wine bar may have higher prices but may give you a discount if you are taking the wine away.

Epicurean Wine Service (7101 East Thunderbird)

John Scremin liked the RustRidge Zinfandel also – this is now available at the store along with the Noceto wines. John is always fun to visit. He has lots of ideas about the wine trade and is always willing to share. All I have to do is ask my prototypical dumb questions once in a while in order to be entertained indefinitely. Try “Do you have a corkage fee?” or “How do you manage to taste all these wines?” or “Have you heard of Richard Corles and Orangewood Consulting?” I personally didn’t ask this last question, but the chairman of the Scottsdale Culinary Arts Festival did, with the result that both Noceto and RustRidge winemakers will be at the brunch and dinner events on April 14^th. Mark your calendars!

Portfolio

Marinda Park

The progress here has been tracking the arrival of the label approval at the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms in Washington. The first attempt appears to be lost in the anthrax checking station. I resent the applications via Fedex. The delay is only an hour that way.

Feedback

I received feedback from Frank who gave me three other names to add to the list – thanks Frank and welcome to the newbies. I also received some feedback on intentions to attend the Duck and Decanter event, it should be fun. Thank you for the feedback. On the other hand if this is wasting your time and you would prefer not to see these ramblings in the future see the boilerplate "PLEASE NOTE" below.

Richard and Laurie