Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 5:40 PM
Subject: Wine at Orangewood Consulting - 18
To our Wine Aficionados,
We had a successful week. Two new restaurants,
Our Gang and Saluté, started carrying our wine, and the Cave Creek Coffee
Company wine bar started selling Noceto Frivolo. The Frivolo has now been
picked up by most of the places selling Noceto.
Little Jazzy – the foal is getting bigger and
stronger. She has a “playful” habit of turning around and kicking out her
back hooves. We have the bruises to show for it. We are getting very
nimble.
The remaining content of this newsletter is as
follows:
Sales
Events
Wine Tasting (feedback)
Restaurants
Our Gang (New
customer)
Saluté (New customer)
Wine Bars
Cave
Creek Coffee Company (New wine)
AZ
Wine (Upcoming event)
Portfolio
Marinda Park (Shipping
progress)
RustRidge (Wine
review)
Feedback
Sales
Events
Event Feedback
Well, as Richard
cleverly did not ask for any indications of attendance, we had little clue as
to who or how many would show up at our wine tasting. We did get emails
from people who needed to explain that their trips to Provence/Japan/Russia
were going to interfere with their attendance. In fact 12 people did show
up, which was sufficient to drink the wine and demolish most of the
cheese. Thanks to all of you. Tom Hamilton was there, and it seemed
as if everybody already knew him for various reasons: he currently works some
of the time at Saluté at Thunderbird and 7th St; he used to run Zinfandel at
Maryland and 16th Street, and before that he ran Dave’s Liquors at 16th Street
and Camelback. Somewhere in the chronology Tom ran a restaurant called
“On the road to Amador” (which is where Vino Noceto is located!) Someone
else had met him playing nude volleyball. Or maybe I heard that
incorrectly - it was late in the evening.
Restaurants
Our Gang – 9832 North
7th Street
Some restaurants
require a lot of selling and it takes a lot of persistence. Some are
easy. Our Gang was easy. One of our Newsletter readers (thank you,
Robert) has been bugging us for a while to sell wine to this popular restaurant
located at 7th Street and Mountain View. Laurie and I had been
there several times. It’s a New York City style red tablecloth Italian
restaurant, so we went again to check the wine list. There was definitely
room for the quality and price of the Noceto Sangiovese (Normale). I then
called and spoke to Lorraine, the General Manager. I arranged to bring
the wine along. She was sick that day, but I did speak to and give a
taste to Dino, one of the owners. Following up a week later, Lorraine was
better, so I took another bottle of wine for her to taste. She liked it
and bought a case to see how it will do. Now it’s your turn. Stop
by and check this place out. After you sit on the patio drinking draught
Bass Ale for an hour waiting for a table, you should be ready to eat and try
the Noceto Sangiovese. It may not be on the wine list yet, so ask for it
specifically. Let us know how it works out for you.
Saluté - 21001 North Tatum Boulevard
On the other hand, the first taste that I gave to Mike at Saluté was last
July. Of course much has happened since then, including Mike building
another Saluté at the new Desert Ridge mall at Tatum and 101. However, I
will be delivering the Noceto wine combo to him on Monday (May 20). I was
along there on Friday to “taste the staff” as they say. They have a small
army of wait staff who tried the Sangiovese, Sangiovese Riserva and Frivolo and
asked questions about Vino Noceto. (I arrived a little early and started
talking to Dan, the barman, who swore that I reminded him of a friend.
Turns out the friend is Julian, my son. I guess we must look alike.
Dan went to grade school and high school with him.) Anyway, Saluté is an
Italian restaurant without checkered table cloths. They do a very
professional and reasonably priced lunch and dinner – one that we have enjoyed
for many years.
To find this restaurant, head north on Tatum past Highway 101. Take
the first right into the mall area, ignoring the signs that say the main
entrance is at the light. Go past the billiards place and Target, turn
left when you reach Petsmart. You are pointing directly at Saluté.
Wine Bars
Cave Creek Coffee
Company - 6022 East Cave Creek Road
On the low maintenance
end of the scale, Dave sent me an email asking for a case of Frivolo. I
was out of town so Laurie dropped it off. Within a day it was their
featured white wine special. Laurie and I stopped by last night to check
quality and sample the food. We enjoyed the Brushetta (the misspelling
certainly helps the mispronunciation) and a salad. Good stuff. This
was our first time in the bar and we were not surprised that it was not full of
Cave Creek cowboys looking for MGD at happy hour prices. It had more of
an English pub quality to it – conversation drowned out the soft background
Charlie Mingus music. Get there while the Frivolo is still available –
they seem to have a strategy of turning the wines over quickly and changing to
something new.
AZ Wine Company – 2515
North Scottsdale Road
June 21st is penciled
in as the date for tasting “Wines of RustRidge Ranch and Winery”. Richard
Betts, the buyer there, visited the ranch a week or so ago and is hot to sell
more of the RustRidge wine. The event will run from 5 – 7pm. I will
send out a reminder closer to the time.
Portfolio
Marinda Park
The wine is crossing
the Pacific, somewhere, with a scheduled arrival in LA on May 31st. In
the meantime, we are working to get permission to ship it to Washington,
Oregon, California and Hawaii – which, in addition to Arizona, are the initial
target states.
RustRidge review
The “Gang at
RustRidge” sent me a clipping from the Connoisseurs’ Guide to California
Wine. They had an article on the top 100 cabernet sauvignons. The
review for the RustRidge 1998 read “87 High in creamy oak and showing notes
of herb, clay and pencil lead that add range to its ripe, direct black cherry
aromas, this wine is medium-full in body, fairly supple in mouth feel and
nominally tannic for Cabernet. It shows a bit of bluntness at the end but
it is deep enough to earn our vote.” I don’t know
who makes this stuff up, notes of pencil lead indeed!
Feedback
Please keep those
cards and letters coming. How was the trip to Provence, anyway?
Richard and Laurie