Sales Outlet Update

Thought it was about time to update the list of where you can get our wines, outside of the web.
Apart from Whole Foods, please call them for availability...remember, we'll deliver too!

a), Shane's Gourmet Catering & Market

447 E. Livingston Ave., Columbus, OH 43215-5534

Phone: (614) 358-5555 Fax: (614) 358-7777

b), Simple Indulgences

20 West William Street, Unit A Delaware, Ohio 43015

Phone: 740.363.5763

c), Clintonville Community Market

200 Crestview Road, Columbus, OH 43202

Phone: (614)-261-3663

d), Whole Foods Market

1,
3670 W.Dublin-Granville Road
Columbus, OH 43235
(614) 760-5556
2,
1555 W. Lane Avenue
Upper Arlington, OH 43221
(614) 481 3400

e) House Wine
644 High Street
Worthington, OH 43085
(614) 846-9463

f) The Winery
8231 N.High Street
Columbus, OH 43235
(614) 847-8115

f), Buy From Us Direct

The ship kits are here we have FedEx lined up, so place your order for our wines.

We take VISA, MasterCard, AMEX, Discover, Debit. If paying by check, you have to mail your check in first.

Phone - (614) 893-5455

email: viavecchiawinery@yahoo.com

Final Four Tournament and Wine???

Michael here...Today we at Via Vecchia Winery congratulate our hometown Buckeyes from The Ohio State University. We are very proud that our Buckeyes advanced to the Championship Finals and will be facing the Florida Gators. Florida is becoming our newest rivalry both on the field and on the court. While I watched the game today, I thought about how odd it was that I was enjoying a glass of wine rather than a beer. Based upon the annual wine sales, I am sure I was not the only one. This year during football tailgate parties I found myself and my 40ish year old friends drinking wine and not beer. Wine is becoming not just an acceptable alternative to beer but the preferred choice to some. What I especially find ironic is that my father owned and operated a beer distributor in Pennsylvania for much of my teenage years. Beer literally put the "bread and butter" on our dinner table. Today, I do not find a pint of beer nearly as satisfying as a glass of our wine. Therefore, today I raise my glass (of wine) to my Buckeyes for a great season and wish them the best as they attempt to end the season as National Champions! Please feel free to comment. Based upon their incredible size audience, I would love to see our friends at The Winery Website Report or Wine Diva ask their audience: "While watching the big game (could be basketball, football, soccer or baseball) do you prefer a glass of wine or a bottle of beer?

Where's the Stuff?

(left to right - Marty, Paolo (me) , Anton and Michael).
Well, the storage bag arrived from FlexTank. All that way from Australia and it still beat the local shipment of the barrel equivalents out of California. oh Well. The French Oak barrels are on their way too as are the barrel bungs.
We hope they will all arrive for Saturday as Saturday is the full moon ("luna piena"). We like to do things by the full moon. A lot of people doubted me on that, but seems like I'm not alone. I don't even feel the need to explain why we do it ... it's good enough that it has been done that way for as long as people can remember (well, a very small group of people in Toscana).
If any of you have yahoo mail, I think i can hook up a webcam and run it via Yahoo Chat so you can see what we're up to on Saturday. If I do I'll let you know on here which Chat Room we'll be in. Just go in and request to see our webcam. I do not promise anything though. In fact it might be dangerous as we will be tempted to show-off and do stupid things. So maybe not such a good idea after all. Forget it...maybe.

Almost forgot - going to a restaurant interested in our wine tomorrow.

Hello to...
Italy, Belgium, Ireland, GA, KY.

Pricing and the Ageing Room

We had a rather ambling and relaxed meeting last night. I think tasting the Bordeaux set the tone and we couldn't break that mellow and satisfied feeling we got out of the tasting.
But eventually we got around to a decent discussion on pricing our wine. We are obliged to have published a price list in Ohio, that is then maintained quarterly. We have had very good reviews of our wine and "it tastes expensive". So we did the old "what would we pay for it?" routine that then refined itself by age of the wine, which led to some agreement that we should "lay up" some barrels for release onto the market in future years, and a higher price. We'll see how this one pans out, but we do have to get to that price list before we sell, or offer for sale, the wine.
We also agreed on a date for a working party to clear out space to relocate the ageing area. This may mean we have to revise the winery plan sent to the FED, who needed the different areas of production, ageing and storage identified. This is scheduled for week Saturday. A morning of throwing out junk and driving it to the dump. However, we swing back through Delaware so we could grab a bite or drink or two.
PS - and how would you pronounce "meritage"? Phonetic suggestions may be posted to Comments.

Operational Updates - Spotlight On Friends

Brief Update.
1. We've not been putting photos or vids up. need to do something about that.
2. wine ops report is done
3. OH excise report is done
4. tax-tax is kindly with Mike B (All Hail!). It is truly a measure of the value of our wine when Mike B (who now owns two accountancy practices) is agreeable to do our tax return for four bottles of our wine.
On that I did a lot or re-jigging of spreadsheets and going back a bit to recover non-bank account expenses for equipment and contributions.
5. Anton's about there with barrel order (all French Oak).
6. I'll place the flextank order tomorrow.

SPOTLIGHT ON FRIENDS

Kelly K.
Kelly has been tirelessy working on our behalf in Oregon. She has whipped up interest in our enterprise and there's people there wanting to try us out. Selling Pinot to Oregon, how about that!.
I've had a couple of wine conversations with Kelly recently and seems like her experiences of wine buyers have been that there are a lot who want to try something different and crafted. She tells of local stores carrying bottles from small wineries because people want something different. Apparently the oregon buyer also understands that these wines are more expensive.
So, when I visit this August (how can I not go to Young Stephen's Wedding Do) it looks like I'll be carting a few samples along with me (and an order book?).
She mentioned the Flying Dutchman Winery on the coast there - seems like they have a similar approach to winemaking as us, so I'll see if I can get a visit (in addition to the couple who've got the vineyard, forget their name - Michael?).

Mike B
Mike B, as mentioned up above, will do our taxes for four of our bottles of wine. That is really something and beyond what any of us could have expected. We had managed to navigate the choppy waters of winery licensing but when it came to the IRS returns, we knew when to seek harbor and take a charter. Mike B has also tasted our wine, so he knows what he's getting too. His comments were "smooth" and "mellow".

Personal Space
I have no pics of relevancy, but I pushed on with my mural and have nearly finished it. So, here it is - my rendition of Botticelli's "Venus and Mars". It is still not finished though.


And here it is in situ.


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"Finish" and "Taste"

Up and down, up and down. That's how the emotions go when you put something out there for public scrutiny. We have had a very good reception apart from a Chicago tasting of one of Michael's splits. We don't know details as to treatment of the wine before tasting (was it left out for a while and subjected to +70F?) but at least it was all good apart from the finish.
Anyway, and I ask Michael to correct me as I'm sure he'll consult the Encylopeadia of Wine, from my own point of view I understand Finish and Taste to mean the following.
Finish.
There are basically two groups of aromas in wine 1), the direct aroma through the nostrils and 2), the indirect aroma when the wine is in the mouth (retronasal).
Finish refers to the endurance/persistence of the retronasal/type 2) aroma. So, in theory, a Great Wine (or an ordinary wine with a lot of artificial help)continues to reveal aromas and flavors in the mouth after it has been swallowed, lips licked, and a breath taken.
Taste.
The four possible tastes in wine are Salt, Sour, Bitter, Sweet. It cannot be anymore since the human tongue just deals in these four. If you taste Salt, oh dear! I really don't think any wine should naturally taste of salt, but if you're manufacturing wine for the Fast Food Generation, perhaps the addition of salt would help them appreciate it.
Some sweetness, bitterness of astringency from tannins or the "sur lees" method, and some acidity will be present. For my part, and this is extremely subjective, a Great Wine should have all three in barely perceptible amounts, neither one dominating. Therefore I like a mellow, smooth wines and avoid high alcohol wines (12.5% and Up) because they have their acidity artificially increased to cope with the alcohol (and I believe higher acid also leads to higher sulfiting, but need to check that one).
That's enough for now (The Winery Web Site Report continues to influence), but next time see an epistle from Eubulus on the consumption of wine.

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