Organizational Skills

 

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.