Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 7:05 AM
Subject: Wine at Orangewood Consulting - 16
To our Wine Aficionados,
It has been a while since the last news letter. We
have been busy skiing, doing software consulting work and waiting for the
arrival of a baby horse (which is now 12 days late).
So the pickings have been thin for activities in
the wine business. The bad news is that “Phoenix” has decided that summer
has arrived and has moved solidly to white wine. The good news is that
Vino Noceto just released its 2001 vintage Frivolo. It’s a Moscato
Bianco, a light, not too sweet, not at all dry, slightly Frizzante wine with a
floral nose and subtle fruit taste. It’s very similar to the 2000 vintage
and goes just great on the patio in the afternoon. AJ’s and Duck and
Decanter have some in stock already so what are you waiting for?
The remaining content of this newsletter is as
follows:
Sales
Event
Scottsdale Culinary Festival
Wine Bars
Duck
and Decanter
Retail Outlets
Epicurean Wines
AJ’s on Central
Wine Supply
Portfolio
Marinda Park
Vino Noceto
Feedback
Sales
Event
Scottsdale Culinary
Festival
This year’s festival
is only a week away. Both Vino Noceto and RustRidge are participating in
the Wine Country Brunch and the Best of the Fest Dinner events. Jim
Gullett, the owner of Vino Noceto,
and Susan Meyer, the Winemaker at RustRidge,
will be here. Check out the details at https://www.scottsdaleculinaryfestival.org/
. For the Best of the Fest the Vino Noceto and RustRidge wines will be
paired with food prepared by Chef Patrick Poblete from Lon's at the Hermosa
Inn.
Wine Bars
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
Now has the Frivolo
AJ’s at Central – 5017
North Central Avenue
Continues to have the
Frivolo, last time I looked they had one bottle of
2000 left – but you can reach behind it to the 2001!
Wine Supply
Finally, some of
you (thanks) called Tom Hamilton at (602) 672-9808 and ordered some wine.
The feedback I got was that the prices and service were excellent.
Portfolio
Vino Noceto
Vino Noceto
makes 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.
Marinda Park
Things are picking up
here. We have received the written label approval from ATF and
successfully applied for an out of state producers license that Arizona insists
on. Now the winery is thinking about how much to charge for the wine and
worry about getting a container to put it in. It should ship around the
end of the month. Planned shipment will contain Chardonnay and Pinot
Noir. The Merlot is being judged not ready. Following is an email
sent to participants in a Singapore wine tasting.
Here are the correct answers to
the questions:-
1. It is a single varietal wine. (5
correct answers out of 8 entries)
2. The varietal is PINOT NOIR. ( 3
correctly identified the varietal)
3. The vintage is 2001 (4 entries picked
the correct vintage)
4. The grapes are from Mornington
Peninsula, Victoria, Australia & the wine made there. (I think there was
some second guessing, only ONE correct answer)
5. The bottle price in
Singapore would be about $40.00. ($22.00 US)
Unfortunately, there was no ALL correct
entry. Let's try again.
This 2001 Pinot Noir is the first
release by Marinda Park Vineyard, located in the Mornington Peninsula. Only
THREE varietals are grown in their 22 acre plot - Pinot Noir, Chardonnay &
Merlot. The Mornington Peninsula has a cool Mediterranean climate & is
particularly known for its Pinot Noir.
One could feel the weight of this wine despite coming from young vines partly because they have kept yields at below 3 tonnes per acre & just 2 tonnes for this Pinot Noir. I thought it was an extremely good effort by a young vineyard & feel that there is good potential for more complex & interesting Pinot Noirs, in the future. French oak are used for ageing, of which 1/3 is new oak.
I had the opportunity to taste the Chardonnay, as well. This wine showed better developed characteristics. This is usually the case for young vines, where white grapevines seem to develop sooner than red grapevines, where wine drinkers expect that much more complexity in flavours.
Feedback
I continue to enjoy your emails. One question I received was about the next event. We are hoping that something can be arranged once the Marinda Park wines arrive but in the meantime we are wondering about doing a private tasting of a few of our wines at our house. We would invite you all as well as Tom Hamilton. Tom would be able to take and perhaps deliver orders right there. If this would be of interest to you, please let us know.
Richard and Laurie