Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2001 8:04 PM
Subject: Wine at Orangewood Consulting - 9
To our Wine Aficionados,
November has come and gone and what has happened at Orangewood Consulting,
I ask myself. And myself answers
"Quite a lot!" However, you'll
have to enjoy these achievements vicariously.
The major events were on the supply side of the business - this is
where we identify and buy wine, always remembering to keep quantities within our
ability to execute Plan B (drinking the wine ourselves if we can't sell it).
I did visit both Noceto (1 hour east of Sacramento) and RustRidge
(1 hour west of Sacramento).
At Villa Noceto I got to meet their sheep dog, who thought I was
an errant sheep upon arrival. I
survived with my khakis intact, which is better than other visitors have
done. Apparently the protocol is to stay
in the car and honk the horn. This
protocol does not apply to the tasting room.
I learned that Noceto is working on another couple of Sangiovese
variants. One blends the Sangiovese that did not meet their Normale quality
requirements and was not worth much on the bulk market with a little
Zinfandel. They were considering
calling the result "Nuts" but their friends told them to stay with
the cachet of Noceto so they are calling it "Tutti i Giorni" (every
day). The label describes the wine as
"quaffable", so we took three bottles along to my thirsty daughter
and son-in-law in Napa and declared it definitely quaffable. This wine may be available soon. They are also working on a Chianti style
wine to be called Misti di Sangiovese.
This wine blends in Malvasia and Trebbiano wines in a similar way to the
wines of the Chianti Classico region.
I'll get some samples of both wines and try to arrange a tasting in the
spring for you all. In the meantime
they told me that they are in the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 California wines. It's on the web and is also the only
Sangiovese there. The article is at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/11/04/CM186970.DTL
After a two hour drive (through Sacramento) my next stop was at
the RustRidge winery. I told them about
the results of the wine tasting and then I had lots of tough questions for them
like "What are the distributor prices?" (They are OK.) And "How
many cases of these wines do you have?" (They have enough.) And "Why
do you use a composite cork" (Because
it gives a better seal.) And do you
really have no space between Rust and Ridge? (Yes.) And how on earth do you get
the Maytag and cream cheeses to blend with the toasted pine nuts and black
pepper? (30 seconds in the microwave softens everything up perfectly - I tried it
works.) And so forth. They are applying to AZ for their out of state
producer license. I am going along to a
couple of restaurants to see what people think. I hope to have the wines in Arizona in the next couple of weeks.
Another winery (yes, another one) called Miranda Park is in Australia. The wine is made by an ex-Measurex guy. His partner and international salesman is
located in Kaua'i (Hawaii). I visited
him there last week. (I warned you that
this would be only vicarious excitement.)
I won't bore you with the details except to say that we did drink some
wine (actually quite a lot) and we are trying to get a container of wine (1240
cases - which is also quite a lot) shipped to our warehouse in Arizona in
2002. How many of you think that a trip
to Australia is appropriate? Geographic
note: There is a place in Kaua'i that has the most rainfall in the world - 400
inches. I think I was close to that place.
So much for supply side. How is the sales side?
Retail outlets:
AJ's at Central: The 1999
Noceto Sangiovese is starting to move more - I took some more down without
dropping it.
Moon Valley AJ's: Archie,
the Cellar Master, tried the wine himself and declared it good...but he is
short on shelf space at the moment. I
will call him every week or so until he tells me to go away or starts to stock
it.
Wine Supply: Tom Hamilton
at www.winesupply.net will supply cases of wine at a small markup and deliver
it.
Restaurants:
Rosti is at 1044 East Camelback and is now carrying the 1999 Noceto
Sangiovese, available by the glass. Territorial Bar and Grill continues to
carry the 1998 Noceto Riserva - but their focus has not yet come to the wine
list. There are 15 other restaurants that I am talking to. I spoke to 10 of them during November. I am hoping that once I have a
"stable" of restaurants this gets easier, so far it's all up
hill. On the other hand, I was in one
restaurant waiting for the American Express Salesman to finish his spiel. He looked at my bottles of wine and said he
wished he had my job.. the wine is always redder on the other side of the fence!
Wine Bars:
Epicurean Wines on Thunderbird at Scottsdale Road did have the
wine tasting on Friday 23rd, as advertised in WOC-8 and the AZ Repulsive. Apparently it is a big happening thing on
every Friday other than the one after Thanksgiving. Still I got to try my spiel on a dozen people, saw several
bottles sold (and not just to the WOC reader who attended - thanks Mark!). The net result is that both of the Noceto
wines are now available at this store at reasonable prices. Duck and Decanter continues to stock the Il
Poggiolino and 1/2 bottles of Noceto normale.
Neither of the other 2 wine bars mentioned last month has signed up.
New territories:
No further activity there - I'm thinking the spring will be the
time to hit Flagstaff again - ready for their busy summer.
Portfolio:
RustRidge is on board.
Marinda Park is a maybe, as described above.
Other:
In support of the notion of getting key people familiar with the Orangewood
Consulting wines, Laurie and I are drinking a bottle of Noceto wine tonight -
it's pretty damn good.
In the meantime, enjoy your wine drinking - you may need it to
survive the Christmas Season. On that
note, remember that the Noceto label has some pretty Christmassy looking green
leaves on it. A red felt tip pen could
be all you need to turn a bottle into a perfect Christmas gift!
Richard and Laurie Corles