Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 7:22
PM
Subject: Wine at Orangewood Consulting - 27
To our Wine Aficionados,
Introduction
Some major
events over the last month: Record sales month; first call to enquire
about purchasing us; wineries call us and send us wine to try. The fun
continues! Our newsletter continues to ramble.
Summary (Box Score)
Three new places to drink our
wines:
Caffe Boa
– 702 Mill Avenue, Tempe (SE Corner of Mill and 7th Street)
Fleming’s
Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar – 6333 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale (SE
corner of Scottsdale and Lincoln)
Four Peaks
Brewery – 1340 East 8th Street #104
Content
Outline for the remainder of this
newsletter
Dick maintains batting average
Ramblin’ (to The) Rose
Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and
Wine Bar – tasting notes
A Treat at the House of Tricks
Shipping to Washington State
E coli vs. Red Wine
Website update
Correction
Feedback
Dick maintains batting average
Here’s to
the continued success of Dick, our sales associate. He has added Caffe
Boa (yes, there are two f’s) and Four Peaks Brewing Company to the list of his
successful accounts.
Caffe Boa is in
downtown Tempe on Mill avenue. It’s hidden between Long Won’s and a
Tattoo and Body Piercing emporium. Dick and I sat in the shady area at
the back and provided tastes of several wines to Christine – the wine “guy” –
who, with her husband, Jay, own and run the restaurant. Geno, from
Nello’s, was also there to try the Noceto Sangiovese Riserva. The smell
of the day’s salmon special was too much for him so he ordered one.
Christine later ordered the Riserva and plans to get the RustRidge Zinfandel,
also. Laurie and I have not eaten there … yet.
Four Peaks
Brewing Company is west of downtown Tempe, across Rural Rd (which is
what Tempe residents call Scottsdale Road). It’s on 8th
Street. Heading out from Caffe Boa making deliveries I figured here I am
on 7th Street, I’ll head south to 8th Street and head
east. I go past University and find 9th Street.
Hmm. U-turning in my traditional Brussels driving style, I try
again. Across University again, 7th Street again. It
turns out that University is masquerading as 8th St and it isn’t
until past Scottsdale Rd that 8th St begins a real presence.
Four Peaks is primarily a microbrewery, but they also have food. Laurie
and I have tried their beer and the food is a pleasure that awaits us. I
don’t know how you sell wine to a brewery, but Dick has sold them the Noceto
Frivolo. If you are not a beer drinker, next time you are forced to go
there, the frizzante, fruity moscato bianco is available.
Dick has
also taken over responsibility for the AZ Wine account. He knows Nick, who
is a wine seller there, as compared to Richard, who is the wine buyer. We
think we need to get this place more productive so the Nick connection could
help. On the day that we do the hand off of the account Dick has scheduled a
tasting with Nick. We want to expand the portfolio coverage there.
While we are waiting the arrival of Nick, Dick latches onto a lady named Linda
who is shopping for wine for her boss. Dick convinces her to buy a bottle
of RustRidge Chardonnay and another of RustRidge Zinfandel. This guy is a
born peddler.
Last
month’s sales success, the House of Tricks, needed their supply of the Noceto
Sangiovese Riserva replenished. While I was there I mentioned to Ryan
that their customers must like it. “No”, he replied, “Dick comes in and
drinks it all.”
Ramblin’ (to The) Rose
If you
head north on I-17 from Phoenix and head west on Route 69 you eventually find
yourself turning South onto Montezuma Street in Prescott, Arizona. As you
cross Gurley Street, Montezuma becomes Whiskey Row, with the historic square
and courthouse on the left and a row of bars on the right. Across the
square from Whiskey Row is Cortez Street, and less than a block away, next door
to a haunted hotel, is The Rose. That is where Laurie and I found
ourselves one afternoon. We had a delivery to make there, so we made a
reservation for ourselves and Beth, Laurie’s long time friend from
Buffalo. We were lucky to get a reservation. I had called the day
before and could only get seating at 5 or 5:30. The Rose Restaurant, run
by Chuck Kaufman and Linda Rose, could be called an Italian restaurant, based
on the propensity of pasta dishes and the way our waiter said “Buon appetito”
after serving us a dish. But that is too simplistic. Linda does not
feel restricted to only Italian sauces and preparation. I think that it’s
better described as an Italian restaurant with a light infusion of American and
French cooking. Our meals, their presentation and the service were
superb. They were nicely complemented by the excellent Vino Noceto wines
available by the glass and bottle.
Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar – tasting notes
Scott at
Fleming’s has bought some of the Marinda Park Pinot Noir. I mentioned in
the last newsletter that I had been working to sell wine to him for sometime
now. I didn’t realize quite how long - it was November 17, 2001 when I
first met Scott. As part of the sale, Scott asked that I provide him some
tasting notes, so I passed this request to Mark, down under. He and the
wine maker (Sandro Mosele) sat down and “after much gargling and sniffing”
provided us with information that describes the wine:
This is the first vintage from a new Australian
vineyard. The Marinda Park Winery is on the Mornington Peninsula south of
Melbourne in Victoria, and protruding into the Bass Straight that separates
Tasmania from the continent of Australia. The weather is subject to the
prevailing southwesterly winds that give it a cool-climate definition similar
to that in Oregon. The vineyard is protected by eucalyptus trees, a hint
of which is noticeable in the aroma. The wine has been made using many
elements of Burgundian vinification, in particular the use of open fermenters.
This leads to excellent skin color and tannin extraction producing a wine that
will withstand many years of bottle aging. The bouquet is deep, complex
and alluring - look for liqueur cherries and wild forest berries supported by
fine French oak. The palate shows a well-structured, earthy wine that reflects
the bouquet, and has a good grip on the finish that serves it well as great
food wine and will best complement red meat or wild duck.
Get along
to Fleming’s to hear what their outstanding wine staff says about this wine.
A Treat at the House of Tricks
In line
with our policy of eating at all the restaurants that carry our wine (it’s an
onerous responsibility), Laurie and I had to decide which of Dick’s new
restaurants to pick on Halloween night. The House of Tricks was the
selected venue for our treat. It’s a block and a half east on 7th Street
from Mill Avenue, Tempe. We sat outside, almost on the sidewalk along 7th
Street. The trees and shade umbrellas gave us a sense of being inside, yet
the noise of the community and the Tricks bar gave a different ambience than
that of piped-in music. The food is familiar enough to be comfortable,
but has creative twists to make it interesting. All the food we ordered
was expertly prepared and presented. Wine was good too! Excellent
choice of restaurant, Dick.
Shipping to Washington State
The joys
of dealing with bureaucracies know no bounds. Norm, one of the owners of
the Marinda Park Winery in Australia, convinced Washington State to sell the
Chardonnay through the state liquor stores there. This followed some
blind tasting by state officials. We gave a quote for the wine back in
July. Now, here we are in October and through the mail pops a purchase
order. Laurie and I look at it and divide the labor. I’ll try to
remember the trucking company that gave me a quote for shipping to Seattle and
adding the special bar code to each case. I’ll also get our warehouse to
prepare the shipment for pickup. Laurie will prepare an invoice and
handle any other paper work. After 20 minutes of work on our assignments,
Laurie comes along to explain some of the neat features of what we have to
do. In addition to sending the invoice to one address, she has to return
an acknowledgement to another address, and get an original and a copy of the
bill of lading (wot goes on the truck) and send it to a third address.
Should we have any correspondence, yet another address is to be used.
Meanwhile dealing with free enterprise warehousing and shipping, I have called
the two companies involved and told them what is needed. I faxed the
details to both parties and it’s agreed that the shipper will attach the
special Washington State labels to the cases (labels with “Marinda” spelt
“Miranda” – I can serve you this bottle of wine, sir, but I must read you your
rights…). I’ve taken the labels down to the warehouse so that the driver
can pick them up and everything is cool. It’s on automatic. It will
all happen. No worries….
One week
later I get a fax from the warehouse, the wine has been picked up.
OK. Then I get a call from the shipper I hired, and they tell me that
they were unable to pick up the wine – it’s already been shipped. Not
OK. I call my contact at the warehouse, Karen, and she says that the
trucker said he had to pick up some liquor destined for Washington. Ours
was the only shipment that met those criteria. Karen does know which
shipping company picked it up. She calls them. I call them.
The magic of shipping documents and tracking systems tells us that the wine is
going to the right place and will be there in a few days. It doesn’t tell
us who told this shipping company to pick up our wine. Theory one is that
it had been subcontracted, but the call from the designated shipper does not
support this theory. Theory two is that Washington State arranged this
shipping, but a call there confirmed that it was our job. Third theory is
that another distributor in Washington had dispatched someone to “pick up a
shipment for Washington”. A call to Norm (of Marinda Park) said that the
target distributor does not know where the wine is stored and could not have
asked for shipment. (Usually a distributor is responsible for shipment of wine
to their location). Theory four is that there is another wine distributor
using the same warehouse facilities (there are four of us) that has a shipment
going to Washington State, but their shipment was not ready yet. As Karen
has gone home for the night, Sherlock will continue the quest tomorrow.
After a restless night I leave a message for Karen suggesting we call back this
shipment and start again. She does this and then calls our designated
shipper to try again. Karen and I don’t know what happened here.
There were no other shipments of wine scheduled from the warehouse and the
rogue shipper had no other wine shipments scheduled. The wine was returned
safely, the new shipment is on its way, we can relax. Now, what is this
bill from the hijacking shipper??
E coli vs. Red Wine
No, this
is not a scheduled sporting event but a serious news article that gives you yet
another reason to drink wine. While the article says that white wine is
more effective, the bottom line is that 'People who drink wine with meals may
protect themselves from food poisoning.' See the original article at: http://www.decanter.com/news/newsdefault.asp?newsstoryid=957
Website
Laurie has
now added all the newsletters to the website. You may notice that she did
not edit the early ones - no prizes for guessing when she started. It’s
all at: http://www.orangewoodconsulting.com/wine.html
Correction
The
restaurant, Langostino, which I mentioned last month, is actually
Agostino’s. It looks as if there is an “L” in front of the name on their
sign because there is a leaning tower of Pisa that looks like one. I
think I called the owner a lobster. It could have been worse, but
nonetheless, my apologies.
Feedback
We have
been getting quite a bit of feedback on the last two or three
newsletters. Thanks. We continue to aim to please.
Cin-cin, alla salute!
Richard and Laurie
Richard (newsletter writer) and Laurie Corles
(editor)
Orangewood Consulting LLC
602.906.9566 or 602.410.3774