CHICAGO, IL-April 30 Our son Robert tried to talk us into driving all the way to Chicago last night, but we had reached our limit after 12 hours in the car and stopped at one of the few motel exists in Ohio.
We were close enough so this morning, we didn't even have to set an alarm to wake up. In fact, we actually arrived a little early for our trade lunch. We killed an hour by window shopping although Hank is not too fun to shop with. He mostly enjoyed checking prices and being shocked by them.
Lunch was at Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab in downtown Chicago. We had 18 at the lunch in a private room including a couple of employees from Heritage, our Illinois distributor, and several accounts. I had eaten here before with Robert several years ago and the food was as good as I remember. Several of us ordered the stone crabs and we were pleased to see how well both the CYRUS and the Alexander School Cabernet Sauvignon went with them. The nicest surprise was that Jerry Hirsch, who started Heritage more than 25 years ago, was able to join us. It was so good to see him. We have such a long history with him and Heritage Wine Cellars and he has always been such a good supporter of our wines. Happy birthday, Jerry! (Today is also Hank's mother Maggie's
birthday).After lunch, we visited with Vincent Feola from Texas de Brazil, a growing chain of Brazilian steakhouses. They are opening an 800 seat restaurant in downtown Chicago and are in the midst of putting together the wine list. They have sold a lot of AVV wines in their other restaurants. From there, we visited Lauren Domenech at Randolph Wine Cellars. They have a great wine shop west of Chicago's Loop and a beautiful wine bar (The Tasting Room) next door. We tasted her on a few wines and she especially liked the Redemption Zin. From there, it was on to Sam's Wines & Spirits for a California Wine Tasting event from 5 until 8.
After Sam's we headed to Harry Carey's to meet our daughter-in-law Kim for dinner. Hank thought his filet was the best he has ever had. The other highlight was that Ernie Banks, the baseball Hall of Famer, was sitting right across from us. We were tempted to asked for an autograph, but he was so surrounded by fans, we hated to bother him.
SOMEWHERE IN PENNSYLVANIA-April 29 This will be a long driving day. According to our GPS we have about 750 miles and 15 1/5 hours to get to Chicago. Thankfully the weather has improved although it's still cold. The best part is we are now really heading west!
I realized today that one of the reasons Hank and I have been getting along so much better on this trip than in previous ones is our GPS. This A.M., in order to try to avoid the traffic into New York, we ignored the GPS
instructions and went back to the handy old map. While I believe I am a fairly good map reader, Hank begs to differ and so we had a few tense moments today as I tried to maneuver him around traffic with alternate routes. We did finally succeed in this endeavor and we are now back on the GPS system and sailing through beautiful Pennsylvania on Interstate 80.NEW HAVEN. CT-April 28 Back on the road at 6 this morning. We have covered 5,338 miles. While Hank says we are now on our way home, according to the map, we are still heading east, actually northeast. We met one of our longtime distributors, Fritz Reisser for lunch in Park Ridge in northern New Jersey. It was nice to have a visit in his neck of the woods, it felt more like we were just a few old friends getting together.
We ate at Esty Street where they are serving our Sangiovese by the glass. The owner, Scott Tremble, has been a big supporter of AVV for a long time, pouring most of our varietals at one time or another including the Cabernet and CYRUS. We enjoyed talking to him and his wife and we had a lot in common since they are Cornell grads just like our son and daughter, Kevin and Margaret, and their son is now attending there.
The traffic up to New Haven where we were headed to see Margaret, was terrible along with the weather, so it was a tough drive after lunch. Partly to get away from the traffic and partly to have a break, we stopped and got new tires. We had originally planned to get them in Chicago, but the bad weather made us realize we really shouldn't wait. Unfortunately, that meant we didn't get to Margaret's until 5. The nice surprise was that Kevin was also there as he had flown in to go to Cornell and to visit a few of his eastern friends. What strange timing! Margaret's studio was very cozy for all of us, but it was great being together and Margaret fixed a delicious chicken dinner using the barbecue sauce we bought at the Budweiser brewery.
ST MICHAEL'S, MD-April 27 Our winemaker dinner last night at the Shore Restaurant in the Harbor Inn attracted a nice crowd, 70 people total, many of them telling us they had enjoyed our wines during the day at the St. Michael's festival. Needless to say, the courses were all wonderful...what a treat. I think we have won over a lot of wine drinkers to our wines over the last few days.
We did see something unusual at the dinner. At one of the tables, a diner brought his own wines to have with the meal. During all the years we have been doing wine dinners, this is the first time we've ever encountered that. He is apparently known for doing this, so we were warned about it before hand.
Yesterday, it was very warm and humid so it was something of a shock to wake up to cold, windy weather this morning. I guess the bad weather finally caught up to us. I had to dig down in my luggage for my "Chicago weather" clothes. We were never warm the entire day. It didn't stop people from coming to the event, however. The pace of the day was a little slower today so I was able to sit in on a few of the chef demonstrations. I do have to admit that we were all glad to see the end of the final day of the festival....five hour tastings can be very long. But the event was definitely worth it as we sold out of almost all of our wines that were available in the festival store run by Town and Country Liquors here.
ST MICHAEL'S, MD-April 26 We ran into a minor problem this morning. The Prius we have been bragging about the entire trip would not start. It's unclear what happened, but we each immediately decided it was the other one's fault. Fortunately, a Prius works like any other car when it comes to charging a dead battery so with Bob's help, we were able to get it going.
As a result, we were able to get to the St. Michael's Wine Festival on time. The tasting ran from 11 until 4 and we had a steady flow of people, which made the day go fast. We were surprised at how many people were so familiar with our wines. Hank gave a seminar in the afternoon called Old World Grapes/New World Winemaking that examined what happens to Old World grapes like Sangiovese and Syrah when they are grown in California. The group tasted through a number of wines including our Viognier and Rose and of course the Sangiovese and Syrah. The seminar was sold out and there was lots of interest and questions, which Hank loved.
ST MICHAEL'S, MD-April 25 I was able to sleep in this morning, which was heaven, but Hank got up at 4 to go fishing on the Chesapeake Bay with Pennie's husband Bob. Pennie (our regional sales manager here) and Bob live right on the bay with a beautiful expanse of lawn and a wonderful view. Hank had been looking forward to this part of the trip ever since we started. I also had a great morning, spoiling myself with a pedicure, then later met Pennie at the St. Michael's Food and Wine Festival. Hank had a great morning with everyone catching their limit of one rockfish.
Although we should have been working, Bob talked us into taking a bay tour on his boat and we ended up at the Crab Claw, a local seafood place, for lunch. Pennie manned our table at the wine festival while we played. The weather continued to be great, so we sat out on the restaurant's deck. I had crab cakes and Hank was introduced to soft shell clams...amazingly he had never heard of them before this day. I couldn't even be tempted to try one, but Hank, the ardent fish fan, thought they were great.
Pennie invited all the suppliers from Bacchus, our distributor, over for dinner that night along with several neighbors. She is amazing, cooking shish kabobs for 40 after attending two winemaker dinners this week as well as a four hour tasting. It was a lot of fun, delicious food and lots of different wines to taste as well as plenty of interesting conversation. Hank snuck off to bed at a reasonable hour, but the party went on.
ANNAPOLIS, MD-April 24 We were able to have a relaxing morning since we didn't have to be anywhere until 2. Got a lot done...a load of wash and even had a little time in the fitness center. We met Pennie Haase, our sales manager in this region and the buyers for Vino Volo for a late lunch at acqua restaurant in the Hilton near the Baltimore airport. Vino Volo is a chain of 7 wine bars and wine shops that are located inside airport terminals. They were looking for some new wines for their wine bars and so we poured a large part of our portfolio for them.
Following lunch, we took off for Annapolis where we had a winemaker dinner that night at Harry Browne's. Annapolis is a historic city and Harry Browne's is located right across the street from the Maryland State House. They have our Sin Zin and CYRUS on their wine list. A small but serious group of wine lovers attended the dinner. The dinner was a little different in that people could also purchase wine here to take home. They cleaned Bacchus, our distributor here, out of all the 2003 they had and also the CYRUS vertical packs, among other wines.
OLNEY, MD-April 23 We've been very fortunate that the weather has been very good during this trip. We had a little rain yesterday, but nothing too worrisome. We stopped for an oil change yesterday and then spent the night in Smithfield, NC. We were in the car quite a bit longer than I expected, but the ride was beautiful with the trees lining the roads all starting to bloom. At a previous stop at a Cracker Barrel restaurant, we picked up a book on tape and it defintely helped us pass the time.
This morning, we hit the road again early. We stopped at another Cracker Barrel for lunch and if I didn't know better, I would have thought we were back at the one we had eaten at a few days before. It looked exactly the same, it was almost eerie.
We timed our arrival in the Washington area well so we were able to avoid most of the afternoon traffic. However, it took us awhile to find a place to stay in Olney, north of Washington, where we were scheduled to do a winemaker dinner that night. I started to worry that we would not have enough time to shower and change before dinner, but thankfully we found something in the late afternoon.
Dinner that night was at Ricciuti's which is located in an old, historic house. Our winemaker dinner attracted a good crowd, filling two of the three rooms upstairs. It was a nice surprise to see that we spilled over into another room.
The group was very enthusiastic and the food and wine pairing was great. The restaurant is owned by Amy and James Ricciuti and uses a lot of ingredients from local farmers. I especially liked the first course, which was a watercress salad with roasted pears and goat cheese from a Maryland cheesemaker called Firefly Farms. The course was served with our New Gewurz and the two really worked well togetherCHARLESTON, SC-April 19-21 This is great...we have three days to play. We started out walking around St. Augustine, a very quaint old city. On our way up to Savannah, GA, we stopped for a tour of the Budweiser factory and tried out one of their new products. We arrived in Savannah around 5, exhausted from the driving and the long week. Spent the evening doing laundry. Ordered in room service....we just couldn't face another dinner out at this point. In the morning, we briefly walked around town before breakfast and then we were back in the car again for the short drive to Charleson.
This was definitely the highlight of the weekend--great weather, two nights in one place and a very interesting and beautiful city.It was great to spend an entire day not going near the car. We walked and rode a horse drawn carriage all over the city. I'm still amazed I got Hank to take the carriage tour, but I think even he was ready for a different form of transportation. We were finally ready to eat out again and enjoyed dinner at Anson's, a restaurant that serves upscale, low-country cooking, along with a bottle of our Cabernet Sauvignon.
JACKSONVILLE, FL-April 18 My organizational skills, never good, are being sorely tested and I am failing miserably. I had started the trip with three bags: one small one that I would take into the hotel every night, one with all of my business clothes and one with my bathing suit and exercise clothes in case I found time to indulge myself. This worked very well at first, but now the entire system has fallen apart. My things seemed to be all mixed up and I was constantly looking in the wrong bag for things. I had only half the things I needed in the morning and had to again do a bathroom change to get myself correctly fitted for the day.
Our regional sales manager down here, Max Vater, met us at 11:30 and we went to Capital Grill for our trade lunch. Another good turnout. We had lunch in a private room with all of us around a large table. This allowed us to talk easily to everyone. I was pleased to see we were pouring the 2004 Syrah which I hadn't tasted in awhile. I've always loved our Syrah, but it was great to see just how well it was showing now. That always seems to be true of our Syrah...it tastes best a year or two after we release it. I also had a chance to take the Alexander School Primitivo for the first time. Everyone there was impressed not only with this wine, but also with the other Alexander School wines we were pouring as well as the 2004 CYRUS. Alexander School is really a great program, allowing us to make small quantities of reserve wines and I'm glad to see they are getting a good reception in the market.
From there, we went to a Winn Dixie grocery store in Ponte Vedra Beach where Hank signed bottles for about an hour. The store had a beautiful display of our wines and a quite extensive wine department. After that, we drove to the Wine Warehouse for a wine tasting. Wine Warehouse is a major chain here with 17 stores and sells a lot of AVV wine. Hank, Max and I poured the wines for a constant flow of customers. There was a lot of interest in the Redemption Zin, Chardonnay, and of course CYRUS. We also poured the new Rosé of Sangiovese and I discovered why there is some resistence to it despite the fact that it seems a perfect fit for the warm weather of the south. Many here see it as another White Zinfandel and so are not interested. Almost without exception, I got a positive response once I got them to try it.
After a brief stop at our hotel, the Casa Monica, to check in, we joined our distrib
utor here along with Max and his wife for dinner at Collage, a wonderful restaurant in St. Augustine that offers a number of our wines including our New Gewurz and our Cabernet. It was reunion time for Hank as the owner of the restaurant, Mike Hyatt, previously owned The Garlic Press in Midland, Texas where Hank had done a winemaker dinner several years before. We had a lot of fun and I enjoyed finally being able to order off the menu instead of the set menu that is served at the winemaker dinners.
