Oz Winery – Report from Kansas

By Kevin

On the drive across Kansas, a state that seems to be roughly 12,000 miles across, Michelle and I noticed a billboard for the Oz Museum. With her love of the Wizard of Oz and my desire to not be in the car for a few minutes, we decided to make a small detour to Wamego, KS. Wamego was a very nice little town and in addition to having coffee at The Daily Grind, next door was the Oz Winery.

The winery offers free samples while they are open and this gave us a chance to try what they had to offer. The dry whites were tasty, especially the Poppy Fields, a balanced Pinot Gris. The wine was well made and we ended up with a few bottles.

Oz Winery is worth a stop for anyone on their way through the Sunflower State.

And if you want to know more about our cross-country road trip, from Cincinnati to San Francisco, you can follow along over on the Posterous Blog.

MicroWines Changes its Business Model

I got an email this morning that grabbed my attention. Microwines in Kenwood, a wine shop known for its open tasting table and its often unique selection of wines, is making some drastic changes. They will be open “most” Saturdays from 12-5 pm and by appointment only. They will also be increasing their internet ordering, which means they’re “increasing communication”  - more email! (Just what I wanted … I’m three months behind as it is.)

I could speculate on why they are making this drastic change – we all could – but I don’t know the real reasons. Here is their letter, as received in my own inbox:

microWINES is updating its model!  For the past six years, microWINES has been delivering cutting edge wine retailing, entertainment and educational experiences in a unique setting.  Our global portfolio of small production wines from around the world is well selected and much appreciated by all our loyal customers.  Like most retailing today, many of our customers now call in orders, browse our web site and e-mail orders for ultimate delivery, and follow us on Facebook, twitter and other social media sites.  microWINES will seek to enhance these methods of reaching our customers to further improve your wine acquisition experience.  We will retain physical store hours at our unique wine lifestyle venue (7292 Kenwood Road Cincinnati 45236), but on a limited basis (most Saturdays 12 – 5 and by appointment).  This will allow our customers to continue to choose an unequaled in store experience and take advantage of our ability to host the most unique wine themed events in Cincinnati.  We will increase communication with you regarding great new wine discoveries and planned events via electronic communication.  I have personally studied and developed a passion for wine over the past 25 years and I very much look forward to enhancing your education and enjoyment of wine in the years to come.  Please look for further updates on: www.microwines.com and please send us your wine stories, interests, buying requests and event interests: info@microwines.com

Come in this Saturday (May 14th 12 - 5) to discuss our new concept with the owner!

Thank you for your continued loyalty and interest in microWINES!

All the best,

Paul Jantsch

Owner – microWINES

Tino Vino Closure Causes Chaos

About a month ago,  Tino Vino, a winemaking venture in East Hyde Park, closed its doors. Because the closing was sudden, without notice, some chaos has ensued. Customers who have placed orders for custom wine have been left with a large hole in their pocketbooks, no way to retrieve their wine, and no way to contact the owners.

The shop was originally owned by Annie McManus, Lindsay Valentino, Michelle Banks, and Jennifer Fairbanks. I admit, I’ve reached out privately to one of those ladies, as well as a former Tino Vino employee, to find out what happened. I honestly don’t expect to hear from anyone. I’ve been led to believe that Annie and Jennifer, at the end, were only peripherally involved in the venture and have acquired lawyers.

I found out about the closing because I’ve been contacted by several of Tino Vino’s customers who think I’m Michelle Banks.  I’m not. Let me make this clear – I do not have any business association with Tino Vino, nor have I ever. I’m as surprised as the rest of the you that they closed in the unprofessional manner they have.

Lindsay Valentino’s recently ex-husband, Steven Sykes Valentino, has his own legal troubles. He and his realty group, ORP, were accused of stealing more than $1 million from the condo properties they manage. One of the girls from Tino Vino was also an employee of ORP. I’m not sure if there is a direct relationship between that situation and the closing of Tino Vino, but common sense tells me there might be.

I have been trying to dig into the closing a little more, but there isn’t much out there. Both Howard Ain (WKRC) and John Matarese (WCPO) have tried to contact the owners with no luck. Both of those gentlemen did reach the landlord of the building, and they both reported an eviction notice on the door. (I drove out to Tino Vino on Sunday and was surprised to find the eviction notice had been taken down. To me, that’s a sign of life. Take it as you will.)

According to Ain at WKRC, the building owner cannot give out any of the wine, as it is still legally the property of Tino Vino. There is an eviction hearing scheduled for the end of the month. If something is not done by then, the Sheriff may have to dump the wine because it’s illegal to set it out or give it away.

My recommendation? Call your credit card company. If you can get your charge reversed for the wine you paid for, do it. It’s certainly worth the call. Also keep in mind that the shop has been closed for a month. If the utilities weren’t paid for in that time, then the wine was no longer in a temperature controlled environment. It may be baking in there under terrible conditions.

If I hear anything that will shed some more light on this situation, I will certainly publish it here.

Wine Shop Wednesday: Trade Tastings

This is the one of several posts from David Lazarus about the intricacies of opening and running a wine shop. David owns and runs Water Tower Fine Wines in Mount Washington.

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One of the joys of being involved in a wine store is having the opportunity to attend trade events. These events are usually held once or twice a year by most distributors. Often there are several hundred wines to sample, from value wines at $10 to trophy wines  priced at $100 or more.  Better than a trade event is an educational seminar. These seminars are priceless opportunities to learn about wine and how better to appreciate them.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a seminar on Barolos and Brunello di Montalcino. This was conducted by one of Ohio’s only Master Sommeliers. I have been to other classes taught by Matt and he is extremely knowledgeable and even more humble. We got to sample four examples of each wine and he pointed out the differences between the different sub-regions for each wine. We were also given marketing tips, such as acreage of these regions versus Bordeaux and Napa Valley. We were shown how this information could be used to show the value of Brunello and Barolos even though they have gone up substantially in price in recent years. It was pointed out that although these wines hail from much smaller regions and have substantially smaller production numbers, they are still much less expensive than many Bordeaux and high-end Cabernets.

We were able to sample another seventy-five Italian wines after the seminar. Some of these were presales for new vintages. We were able to meet winemaker Valter Fissore from Elvio Cogno and sample five of his wines and I was able to revisit a number of wines that I have already brought into the store. Additionally, I found some neat new wines that I will be bringing into the store later this summer.

As summer moves into fall most of the larger distributors will be having their holiday show, which give them an opportunity to show off wines for the holidays. I was able to go to these last year and am looking forward to going again this year. They often will bring in winemakers or principals from the wineries they handle. This gives me an chance to get first hand information about many of the wines I carry. I can get interesting stories about the development of some wines or the thinking behind a label change. It is always a treat to meet some of the Icons 0f the wine world and to realize they are just like the rest of us. I love attending these for my own enjoyment, but always try to come away with something in which my customers would be interested.

Wine Shop Wednesday: An Update on Water Tower Fine Wines

This is the one of several posts from David Lazarus about the intricacies of opening and running a wine shop. David owns and runs Water Tower Fine Wines in Mount Washington.

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It has been some time since I have updated our travels through the start up of a new wine store. Well, a lot has gone on through the last several months. We have ironed out the glitches in our Point of Sale system for the most part. The store has been operating fairly smoothly and we have had fantastic turnout for our Friday night tastings. We have officially started up Saturday afternoon tastings and we are beginning to see attendance increase at those tastings. We have held several Premium Tastings, that we have moved to Monday night. These have been well attended and give a more intimate group a chance to sample a more focused selection of wines.  This Month we will be sampling six single vineyard Pinot Noirs from Merry Edwards. We have had two successful Sparkling Brunches, the first sampling 8 grower champagnes and the second eight Franciacorta Sparkler.

We have been learning a lot from our customers. Our selection has more than doubled to just over 1300 different wines, including more than 140 sparkling wines , 50 Rose’ (no white zinfandel) and almost sixty Rieslings. We have made an effort to carry wines that may not be found elsewhere. We have been lucky enough to be able to offer dozens of distributor closeouts, some as much as fifty percent off of retail. My wife, Jan, has repeatedly come up with great dishes to pair with the wines tasted.

I have had the opportunity to sample some fantastic wines from all over the world, which gives me a greater knowledge base to assist our customers in selecting the right wine.  Our redecorating and improvement of our building is almost complete. We have achieved the homey atmosphere we wanted with our cozy tasting areas which can seat nearly sixty people.  Our web site is fully operational and offers a calendar of our tastings. We have fine tuned our weekly e-mails that can be signed up for through our web site.

We have seen solid growth since the first of the year.  With the coming of summer we look forward to being able to better use our shaded deck and try some new ideas for tastings. We welcome input from you, what are we doing right and what are we doing wrong. Most importantly we have been thrilled with the loyal following we have developed in just under eight months. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have or any wines you are having trouble locating.

Thanks for your continued interest!