Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 8:45 PM
Subject: Wine at Orangewood Consulting - 26
To our Wine Aficionados,
Summary (Box Score)
Two new restaurants
sign up:
House of Tricks, 114 East Seventh Street, Tempe
The
Rose, 234 S. Cortez in Prescott
Content
Outline for the
remainder of this newsletter
Sales Ramble
Sales Associate
batting 1000
Prescott Sales
Pending Sales
Label Approval
Feedback
Sales Ramble
We are
heading home from Telluride after a weekend helping the Johnstone Inn innkeeper
close his inn. We have been staying there every year for ten years, so he
invited us to celebrate. The aspens are turning yellow, more so after a
weekend of rain and snow than before. A little mist hangs in the valley
alongside the road. Miles Davis is adding to the ambiance and we have fun
driving through a herd of cows. The cowboys create a pocket for us to
drive into and eventually through the herd. My fingers feel a ramble
coming on…
While much
of what a wine distributor does is concerned with logistics – transportation,
storage, inventory levels and so forth – the toughest part has turned out to be
convincing restaurants and wine shops to carry the wine and to continue to
carry the wine. There are a number of tactics that work some of the time
- whether they are working or not is a judgment call, and I have little
confidence in my ability to make correct calls. One of the tactics is
persistence. After identifying a restaurant, say, as one that has room on
its wine list for one or more Orangewood Consulting wines; making sure that the
pricing is compatible; and trying to determine that the place helps customers
select wines, persistence means showing up again and again trying to get an
order. This, in theory, gives the potential customer confidence that they
will be well treated once an order has been placed. In some cases this
works. In other cases it feels as if the potential customer is playing
the Monty Python cheese shop game. You know, the one where John Cleese is
trying to guess what cheese is available at the store (there is none) and the
purveyor has to have a different excuse for each cheese. “Normally sir
yes, but the van broke down”, “The cat ate it” and so on. In one case I
became convinced that this was happening, and that the owner and his wine guy
were betting how long they could string me along. I don’t go there
anymore.
The CD is
playing Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car. It takes me back to a restaurant called
“No Name Restaurant” in Bruges, Belgium. I’m eating onion soup and
hearing the artist and the track for the first time. This was 1989 and I
have rambled too far.
Sales Associate batting 1000
Dick made
his first sales call to the House of Tricks in Tempe. The
restaurant is run by Bob and Robyn Trick. This is a fine restaurant
serving eclectic food close to downtown Tempe. (What does eclectic
mean? It means that they put great food together in interesting and
unusual combinations.) Dick took along our Vino Noceto and
RustRidge offerings. He is most familiar with these wines and can
therefore represent them well. They ordered the Sangioveses – both
Normale and Riserva. Their plan is to serve the Normale in the bar by the
glass and the Riserva by the bottle on the dinner menu. I delivered the
wine the next morning. They also plan to carry the Zinfandel in the
future. An outstanding beginning. How was he so successful his
first time out? He was genuinely enthusiastic about the products.
(Having known the owners for 25 years may have helped, too.)
Prescott Sales Efforts (continued)
In the
last newsletter I mentioned an aborted appointment with Chuck at The Rose
in Prescott. When I called to make another appointment, Chuck was very
apologetic. He said he had not had my phone number to contact me to
cancel. I scheduled another appointment. When I arrived 10 minutes
early, Linda panicked and called Chuck’s home and cell phone numbers leaving
messages. Chuck, however, arrived right on time. In the meantime I
was able to enjoy the wonderful kitchen smells and to open the wines in
preparation for the tasting. I brought the Noceto Sangiovese Normale and
Frivolo. Linda’s full name, by the way, is Linda Rose. I suspect
that this may be the source of the restaurant name. Chuck had told me he
didn’t care for boutique wines – too expensive and not very available. I
promised him these wines were both reasonably priced and I would work to keep
them available for him year round. We started with the Frivolo – which he
liked a lot. He had Linda try it, too. A winner. The
Sangiovese was also well received after a little palate cleansing – Chuck
brought out some garlic bread. Chuck said he would buy a case of each,
which I just happened to have in the cooler in the car, along with an
invoice. I do like dealing with wine people who can make a
decision. As our friend Mark once told me, the best answer is “yes”, the
second best is “no”. Taking a lot of time because the buyer is uncomfortable
saying “no” only wastes both of our time. As I was wrapping up the
tasting, a lady selling advertising showed up. She commented that selling
wine looked a lot more fun. (If only I could figure out a way to cash in
on this envy angle…)
I also had
an appointment at Murphy’s. Fargo is the bar manager there. She
also enjoyed the Frivolo, and I left the remainder of the bottle with her so
that she could give her general manager a taste. I will be following up
prior to my next trip.
Finally,
for dinner we treated our nephew – a freshman at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical
University in Prescott – to Langostino, an Italian restaurant and potential
candidate for a future sales call. They were somewhat formal; our waiter
wore a black bowtie and other accoutrements of sartorial formality.
Service was good, as was the food. The wine menu was a little strange,
however. Instead of focusing on the winemakers’ names, it had things like
Merlot, Italy. Only the Chianti Classico had a brand – Antinori.
The price was significantly lower than would be compatible with our Il
Poggiolino Chianti Classico Riserva, so I think I will cross this place off my
list.
Pending Wine Sales
In the
area of sales persistence, there is one campaign of note: Fleming’s in
Scottsdale. This is a place that I entertained a visitor from
Austin (for the management consulting side of the business) back in the summer
of 2001. The restaurant is actually called Fleming’s Steakhouse and Wine
bar. (Give them a call - they say the whole name each time when answering.)
My filet was wonderful. Watch out for the matchstick fries – there are
enough for 3 or 4 people in one order. Their approach to serving wine is
outstanding. When you order a bottle, they decant it for you, allowing it
to be ready to drink a little sooner than leaving it in the bottle. They
provide Bordeaux sized glasses so that there is plenty of swirl room and an
opening big enough for the largest proboscis. The wine guy is Scott
Yanni, and he is one of the nicest guys I know in the business. I have
only met him three times, yet he remembers me, my name, my wines and the fact
that I left my corkscrew there the first time he tasted my wines. The
second time he tasted I left my corkscrew at home. It keeps me feeling
like an amateur – but you can’t tell from the friendly way I am treated by
Scott. The first time (in 2001) I took the Noceto and RustRidge wines –
it was all that I had. He liked the RustRidge Zinfandel and promised to
add it to the menu once there was a space on the list. I have been
calling him every month since then, but corporate has been changing the rules
on him and making it difficult for him to find room. This time I took
along the Marinda Park and Domain Coteau. I call this the story of two
Pinot Noirs. They are so different. Domain Coteau is soft and
French style. Marinda Park is tannic and strongly structured. It is
difficult not to have opinions on one or the other. Scott promised
to add the Marinda Park Pinot Noir once he has sold through one of the half
cases that he has in stock. I’ll be calling back.
Marinda Park COLA
Marinda
Park unearthed an old version of a special formula and believes that they can
take on giants Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. :-) Actually, COLA stands
for Certificate Of Label Approval and is issued by the BATF (Federal Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms). As part of the process of importing a
wine into the USA, we need a COLA. Minor changes, such as year of
vintage, don’t require a new COLA, but a new varietal does. We have just
received approval for Marinda Park’s new Sauvignon Blanc. They will be
labeling and bottling it shortly, and it should be available in Arizona early
in the New Year. Initial feedback from the winemaker is that he is very pleased with its progress.
Website
Laurie has
added more newsletters to the website, updated the new restaurants and added
links to restaurant websites. Feel free to check it out at http://www.orangewoodconsulting.com/wine.html and to
send us feedback. Mark, another Mark, suggested that we should add some
photographs. We’ll add it to the Phase 2 Requirements.
Feedback
We
have been getting quite a bit of feedback on the last two or three
newsletters. It certainly is encouraging. One email in particular
was very helpful. Someone has a brother who is in charge of operations at
one of the Kierland restaurants. (Thank you Lori).
Cin-cin, alla salute!
Richard and Laurie
Richard (newsletter writer) and Laurie Corles
(editor)
Orangewood Consulting LLC
602.906.9566 or 602.410.3774