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Shaky Palette:

Picking up checks and selling wine, you know we do this all the time. Picking up checks and selling wine because our clients don't pay on time. Picking up checks and selling wine is the wine rips daily grind. Picking up checks and selling wine. You know we do this all the time.

Andy Pates:

Hello, and welcome to Samples for Monday, October 26, episode 42, Halloween week. And thank you for the house band, shaky palette, and the split cases coming in with some Halloween week inspiration. Samples is sponsored by the best mineral water in the world, Agua de Piedra. No. Not really, but I wish they were because I drink a lot of it, and I love it so...

Andy Pates:

And we're crushing it. You guys are selling a lot of it, so thank you. Or maybe it should be sponsored by Arete, cream's number one agave spirit tequila, the Orendyne family. Year to date, we're at $940,000 worth of Orette sales. I think that's what we did all of last year.

Andy Pates:

So with a little over two months to go, I think we're gonna push Orette well into the million supplier sales milestone and benchmark, and that's just been a great team effort. Barrel sales, Chiyo and Abby going out there for specialty cocktails, events, the Suave. Christophe really putting the full court press with ownership with Eduardo and with the new US Sales Manager based in California, Brian. Dan working with the reps, going out, doing that extra appointment, that extra visit, purchasing, customer service. The whole team, all the sales reps, all the hard work, extra effort, having to negotiate all the different price structures in the well and everything else, you've just done an exceptional job in...

Andy Pates:

For that. I guess this is the obligatory, scary wine or scary beverage recommendation. Although if you're hearing this, it's probably too late to make that sales pitch. I think some of you, were more proactive about it, either asked for the list or suggested their own, and Tory shared it. So I'm not gonna belabor that.

Andy Pates:

It's in Slack. Check your Gmail. And hopefully, of you took advantage of some creative ways to sell beverages during a really busy week. Halloween is one of the biggest adult beverage consumption evenings of the year. This year, it comes on a Saturday, so we should have some great retail options.

Andy Pates:

I think also there'll be some great partying this weekend, a lot of costumes, a lot of people, running around trick or treating. It is... You know, even though it was an 84 degree mid eighties weekend in Chicago, just a spectacular weather weekend in Chicago, Halloween typically is, you know, the kids are either trick or treating in, you know, shorts or or or, they're... They have their winter coats on and it's... The rain is coming in sideways.

Andy Pates:

So who knows what's gonna happen? I hope that we can keep this, prolonged summer, this late Chicago summer going. It's just been incredible for everyone's, mood, the sunshine, the great weather. So, you know, we deserve it because we certainly... Living here in the frozen swamp, we certainly deal with, the highs and lows all across the board.

Andy Pates:

But, you know, you guys didn't, you guys didn't mandatorily tune in to hear me, be Tommy Skillet head for, Halloween. You wanna hear about the samples in the wine. So, you know, I think that an alternative to the usual suspects for Halloween and just something... If the weather does break, if the kids are trick or treating with winter coats on and the the wintry mix is coming in sideways, at the start of November, I think that the zombie wine Madeira should be on everyone's radar. There's the latest Madeira offering that Aaron and Rare Wine Company put together and Tori collaborates with and and sends that out.

Andy Pates:

We do have vintage Madeira, which is basically a zombie. It's cryogenically sealed. It's a... It's the interview with a vampire wine. That vintage, frozen in time for eternity that's...

Andy Pates:

Obviously, you can't can't destroy it. So even if you have it in the trunk of your car in the summertime, over a weekend, just bring that bottle back up to temperature. And even if the cork pushed out, bring it up to temperature, and it'll be absolutely delicious. The wine literally was made by baking it. Anyway, and also we are the leaders in the category of Madeira, through Manny Burke and his vision and Barbato and D'Allavera and all the extensive vintage, Madeira that we have.

Andy Pates:

I I heard Christophe, in the office the other day talking about the nineteen o eight Madeira... Vintage Madeira that we sold so much of, and that was before 2008. And that was in and around the hundredth anniversary of the Cubs last World Series, and we really sold a lot of that. And it was really, really fun, and it was relatively affordable. Now it is just like...

Andy Pates:

It's like a Birkin bag. It's it's something that we can offer and sell, but, definitely, like, it's it's for for those that fly in private jets. But you don't have to fly in a private jet or be a billionaire to enjoy vintage Madeira. You know, an ounce at a restaurant regardless of the price is still cheaper than a plane ticket. It's still cheaper than economy plus, business class, first class, net jets.

Andy Pates:

Oh, did you see that the Fete de Champagne, some of the events for the billionaires was sponsored by NetJets? I thought that was kind of funny. But anyway, back to the pod of the week, we get it, Madera, Zombie, frozen in time. We have great selections either in stock or in California. Do the work now.

Andy Pates:

It'll pay dividends in the late part of the year and then the early part of next. Also, I was thinking, like, are there any wines from Transylvania? We have a buyer from Transylvania who buys closeouts. But, are there any wines from Transylvania? So that part of Romania, the Carpathian Mountains, I don't know.

Andy Pates:

There might be some... A wine culture there, but I think the nearest major wine producing region to Transylvania is probably... It's probably the Tokai region of Hungary. So, certainly, Karydvar that we sell via the rare wine company, Karydvar, the Court of Kings, the King's Court, Karydas Karai, the volleyball player. That winery domain was purchased by the Huang family when they bought Domaine Huet.

Andy Pates:

So there is, a connection with that great estate with, the Loire Valley and with with Huet, as you know. And so I really like that sparkling, that Peshkow sparkling from Karydvar that is made method traditional or whatever the Hungarian, version of that would be. And, that's harsh lava lue and ferment. And man in a blind, you would think that that was possibly or maybe or something. Really cool wine.

Andy Pates:

But, yeah. So that's an area that's close. And then also Serbia, shout out to the students and the two year grind to get some political change in their country with their recent parliamentary election. So, yeah, shout out. You can see what's possible when young people get out and vote en masse.

Andy Pates:

So, it'll be exciting to see what happens in that country. But we do have... There's a sample bottle of a Reichia from Legenda, which is a RedKia, which is banging around somewhere in the office. I think last seen on one of the sample shelves in the in the, sales people's, sample area. It's got a white label on it.

Andy Pates:

We don't have any in stock, but that is available via ZRS. It's in New Jersey, I think, and that would be $2.40, a six pack, or $40 a bottle. So those are the two Transylvanian adjacent wine options for you. But also just start to think of the future. Whoever wasn't planning missed the Halloween wines unless you can, you know, sell some cases this week, which is...

Andy Pates:

We're having a great month, by the way. I think we'll probably go over 15,000,000 in sales maybe on Thursday. So, congratulations to all of us on that and keep keep going. But, if you didn't have a more proactive planning for Halloween, I think the next sort of major, oh my god, this is a thing and we have wine to present to you would be... If I had to guess, I would say Beaujolais Nouveau, the third Thursday in November, which, you know, outside of Dubuff, I don't know producers that are flying their new release Nuvos in a plane to beat the shipping to get here on time.

Andy Pates:

I think that is a thing. But usually what ends up happening is the domestic producers get the wine here early, and we do have, two producers with Nuvo en route. There's the slippers from from, Las Harris that Jenny Slacked about, so that should be here in time. And then also Scribe has a Nuvo, that Aaron communicated with you. And so those should...

Andy Pates:

The domestic side of it. We have older Nuvo from Modalis that you can, like, repackage or repurpose or put on sale or have... You know, do something with it. And then there was another Nuvo that it... I'm sorry, but it escapes me.

Andy Pates:

And then the other, side of that is a lot of people who are passionate about Gamay and are passionate about Beaujolais and the Crue Beaujolais. Can anyone name the 10 Crue Beaujolais? No one took me up on my, extra credit for the 13 grapes of Chateauneuf Du Pape. So either you're not listening or you're lazy or both. But, the 10 crews of Beaujolais usually in and around Nouveau time, there's the restaurants that say, fuck Nouveau.

Andy Pates:

I'm all about the cruise. I'm all about the Beaujolais Velage. I like Vinda France, these natural wines, and and everyone's favorites. And so Chicago's a great market for a lot of, Beaujolais from different genres, different importers. We have two brothers that we direct import that should be your focus in terms of sampling and talking about.

Andy Pates:

I feel like I'm a... You probably feel the same way that I'm a broken record talking about it, but Antoine Sunnier and his brother, older brother, Julian Sonnier, we direct import their, Beaujolais Velage wines, the Wild Soul from Julian and the Gamay Persuite from Antoine, but they also... And and primarily focus on two crudes. Rennier and Morgon are the are the two crudes for Antoine, and then he has a Loudi Montmoran, which is excellent. Those wines are back in stock, fresh vintages.

Andy Pates:

And then Julien focuses on, Morgon and Fleury. So those are both in and out of being available from from those producers. I think, like, the smart move is to sell us out of Julienne because those wines are approaching a year of aging in our temperature controlled warehouse, and they're showing really, really well. And they're probably the least expensive that they're ever going to be unless I put them on sale, which I don't wanna do. So, you could sample a set of the bros and just have a complimentary section and get ahead of the Beaujolais Nouveau conversation by helping us sell our domestics...

Andy Pates:

Domestiques and, helping us sell our direct imports of the Sounyard brothers. There's also a De Buste, which Zafare used to import and Rosenthal does, that you can, promote as well at a lower price point for the Beaujolais Velage. And then I gotta give a shout out to the team, to the reps or rep who sold us out of the domain fa, Beaujolais Blanc, Beaujolais Rouge, crew Beaujolais. I don't know how many SKUs. It was eight SKUs, seven SKUs, the DNS producer that they're no longer working with.

Andy Pates:

When I announced that low, low, low price fire sale in... Incredible price of $72 a case or $6 a bottle, y'all responded to that, and it is gone. So thank you. And then also thank you for doing that with the, Ojiro, niece. You know who you are, and I appreciate you.

Andy Pates:

So thank you for doing that. The last thing I'd like to talk about is that, the flood, the orange wine, macerated wine from Joe Swick is back in stock. We have a little bit of the Only Zool, a complimentary skin contact orange used to be rose. Now it's more orange aesthetic wine that's doing pretty decent, so thank you for that. But the flood just came in, and that historically has been along with bring it, Swick's best selling wine.

Andy Pates:

So please get a sample of the flood going so you can have some wonderful macerated skin contact, dare I say orange wine, additional presence in the market for for the fourth quarter. So that's all I got. I really appreciate everyone, each and every one of you, and for your mandatory listening. And, hopefully, you enjoyed this as much as I did, and we can make some incremental and additional sales, as they apply to the season. So that's all I got.

Andy Pates:

I'll see you when I see you. Thank you so much for selling the good juice. Ciao.