Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 4:39
PM
Subject: Wine at Orangewood Consulting - 15
To our Wine Aficionados,
Another newsletter – another successful event!
The remaining content of this newsletter is as follows:
Sales
Restaurants
Rancho
Pinot
Richardson’s
Wine Bars
Cave Creek
Coffee Company
Duck and
Decanter
Retail Outlets
Epicurean Wine Service –Event
Recap
AJ’s at Central
Portfolio
Marinda Park
Vino Noceto
Breathing Lessons
Feedback
Sales
Restaurants
Rancho Pinot - 6208 North
Scottsdale Road
I asked Richard Betts of AZ Wine
how to get Rancho Pinot selling the RustRidge Zinfandel that is now on their
menu. He suggested that I take a bottle along and get the wait staff to
sample it. Tom Kaufman, the owner, told me to come along at 5:00 any day,
so I did. Rancho Pinot is one of those places where everybody pitches
in. Tom was moving tables around to meet the needs of the reservations
they had. The wait staff were folding napkins and polishing
glasses. The kitchen was bustling. I waited at the bar and amused
myself by reading a restaurant kitchen catalog. (If you want to have a
deep fryer that takes 40 pounds of fat, bring $400 and call this toll free
number. Better yet, they have a website – check it out at http://www.centralrestaurant.com.)
But I digress. I did get all the wait staff to try the wine, and they
declared it good.
Richardson’s - 1582 East
Bethany Home Road
So far Richardson’s has been a
very high maintenance restaurant. We did finally get the Noceto on the
“by the glass” and “reserve” wine lists. All the staff has sampled the
wine. The prices are appropriate. The Normale was even the feature
special for one week, until they sold out and didn’t re-order. I will
deliver more on Friday, so we should see it on the list early next week.
I ran into Richardson (Rich) as part of this process and he asked about other
wines, so I dropped off the RustRidge for him to try.
Wine Bars
Cave Creek Coffee Company - 6033
East Cave Creek Road
The Wine Bar is now open.
There is an invitation only grand opening on March 3, my spy tells me (thanks
Jim). Last time I looked it is open from 5:00 PM, but will soon be
opening from 11:30 AM. Dave tells me that the Noceto Sangiovese (Normale)
is being well received. Feel free to stop by to receive some.
Duck and Decanter - 1651 E
Camelback
We’ll be starting the Frivolo (See
Vino Noceto below) campaign here. They have a great outdoor
eating/drinking area. It should be perfect!
Retail Outlets
Epicurean Wine Service - 7101 East
Thunderbird – Report of Event
Last Friday was the long-awaited
event. Out of over 40 people attending, more than 20 were traceable to
WOC. What was amazing was that there were hardly any of the same people
at this event as at Duck & Decanter. Thank you all for your support
and enthusiasm. The 2 Noceto wines and the 2 RustRidge reds were
featured. By sales volume the RustRidge Zinfandel won, with
the Noceto Sangiovese (Normale) a close runner up. Those of you who
left early (Bill and Christine) missed the celebrity sighting. Beth
McDonald, of the “Beth and Bill Show”, dropped by to taste the wines. She
is a Cabernet Sauvignon drinker, in case you are wondering what kind of wine to
take to her next party.
AJ’s at Central – 5017 North
Central Avenue
Just in case you think that
everything we do is a roaring success… AJ’s at Central continues to sell
the Normale at a reasonable rate, but we wanted to try to expand the number of
wines that they carry – from our portfolio that is. I have been working
with Wendy for some time to set a date for a wine tasting that she and her staff
could attend. I was also trying to attract Archie from AJ’s Moon Valley
store. Neither of these people is easy to get a hold of, much less pin
down for a tasting. We finally agreed on a date; flyers were prepared and
posted; munchies procured (bread and cheese again); wine readied (put on the
table with a corkscrew beside it); Oscar Peterson loaded into the CD player;
and the event was ready to roll. I thought that Wendy and two of her
staff were committed to coming and I was hoping that at least one from Archie’s
staff would make it. An hour and a half after the starting time, Jerry
from the Central Avenue store showed up. He tasted and took notes and we
talked and he tasted and took notes and then he left. That was it!
So it goes.
Portfolio
Marinda Park
I finally heard, but have not
received written confirmation, that the ATF has approved the labels. Some
of you may have seen the labels at the wine tasting – those are the ones.
As we are getting closer to actually seeing some wine, you can get some
background information about Marinda Park on their family website: http://www.marindapark.com/summer2001.html
Both the user name and password
are “measurex” (no quotes).
Vino Noceto
Vino Noceto does a Moscato Bianco
called Frivolo. It’s a white, light, slightly effervescent, summer
sipper. They did not make much last year and we took only 4 cases.
This year they produced nearly 500 cases and we hope to get a few more than 4.
Vino Noceto bottled the wine Monday and plans to do the labeling Friday.
Then it’s just logistics to get it to market. We think that Phoenix can
absorb huge quantities of this stuff.
Breathing Lessons
One of the questions that I was
asked (by Frank) at the Epicurean Wine tasting had to do with letting wine
breath. Should you? Shouldn’t you? Does it depend on the
wine? How long should you do it? And so forth. I suggested
that getting my opinion or a real expert’s opinion, for that matter, is not especially
helpful. What I suggested was a little scientific method. As a
starting point, when a bottle is opened it should be sampled from time to time
to see if you notice a change. If not, this wine doesn’t need to
breath. This works if there are only two of you because the bottle of
wine may last for several hours. If there are more of you, another
approach would be to have two bottles; open one an hour or two early and then
compare them when you open the second bottle. The key here is not “Do wines
improve with breathing?” but, rather, whether a particular wine improves for
you. That said, the first time we were in Italy we were with a friend who
convinced us all that one bottle of wine was corked, i.e., spoiled by a bad
cork. So, determined to exchange the bottle, Dick practiced the Italian
phrase for “This wine is corked” (“Questo vino sa di tappo”) all evening.
The next morning, off we went (Dick and I) to try out his phrase. The
long and short of it was that the overnight breathing made this wine
gorgeous. The lady at the Enoteca tried it and explained what had
happened. She did exchange our bottle and she did remind us, and the rest
of the store, to let it breathe for at least an hour or two before drinking.
Feedback
I received positive feedback on
the tasting at Epicurean, both at the event and subsequently. Thanks
again for the support.
Richard and Laurie