Peddling our wares

A weekend full of winetastings and promoting Domaine de la Gramière!  Bruce Neyers, the national sales manager for Kermit Lynch wines, was in the area with a group of distributors from Illinois, Virginia, New York, Washington DC, Florida, California, Texas, Arizona and Oregon!  So Matt and I put on our best faces, brought along samples of the 2005 and tank samples of the 2006 and had dinner with them in Avignon.  These dinners are very important because, you see, even though Kermit imports the wine and distributes it in all 50 states and Canada, you still have to convince the distributors in each state to buy our wine.  Just because Kermit agreed to import the wine doesn't mean that he doesn't need help selling it, after all, except for you loyal blog readers, no one has ever heard of Domaine de la Gramière, and there are lots of other Côtes du Rhônes out there.  So you can see how important it is, not only for us to taste them on our wine, but to make a lasting impression on them, so that when they see our wine offered in the Kermit Lynch catalog, they'll remember us and want to order it!  Luckily for us, both the 2005 and 2006 were tasting really good on Friday night. I think we made a good impression. We'll see!

Then on Sunday afternoon, we got a call from a fellow American, fellow vigneron and winemaker,  Denis Gayte. Denis had Peter Dow from Cavatappi Distribuzione with him, and wanted to know if they could come by and taste.  Denis grew up in Seattle but his father is French growing up just a few kilometers from where we live.  He discovered our rosé this summer by accident at a restaurant in Uzès. While having lunch he overheard the restaurateur talking about an "American couple" making wine locally.  Denis contacted us, and now we get together every so often to taste each others wine and to "talk farming".  Denis took over his family's vineyards and also bought several more hectares in a neighboring Côtes du Rhône commune where he makes his wine. Since Denis is from Seattle, a lot of the wine he makes finds it's way there, and Peter Dow is his importer.  Peter Dow also happens to be the distributor for Kermit Lynch wines in Washington state, and since he wasn't on the trip with Bruce and the others he wanted to come meet us.  It was a great way to spend some time with him and get to talk to him one on one about the wines, and get his opinion.  Peter loved the 2006 and thinks it's going to be great!  Which for us was great to hear. The first non-biased opinion on our 2nd vintage!  I tend to agree, but of course, I am a little biased!!