Philantropy and Fine Wines: Build a Wine Story with a Big Heart

(More wine news on www.vitabella.fr) Let's imagine a day when a percentage of the Roederer or Lanson Champagne bottle's recommended selling price is given to a charity. You could do the same with each bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild sold en primeur or with bottles of Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau sold on the third thursday of November. This time could come soon as we saw more and more successful initiatives during the last few years.

Some examples? In the USA, the Bump family recently released Darms Lane Linda's Hillside Vineyard cabernet sauvignon. This wine is named in honor of Darms Lane vineyard co-owner Linda Bump, who died of ovarian cancer in 2007, and one-third of the bottle's recommended selling price of $75 is given to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. Another example in the US comes from Gallo Family Vineyards: you can mail in a cork from any of the company's wines between now and December 31 and the winery will donate $5 to the Meals On Wheels Association of America, for a total of $25,000 (The Meals on Wheels Association of America provides meals to senior citizens and families in need). And these operations are not only taking place in the USA. A great initiative on an international level comes fom Macallan Scotch Whisky. The Macallan Scotch Whisky's oldest and rarest whisky ever bottled, a 64-year-old single malt, has traveled the world in a Lalique decanter. According to Business Week, "tiny tastes of about 3 ounces have been auctioned off with proceeds benefiting charity. A high point was $41,000 raised in Taipei. Since the tour began in April 2010, The Macallan and Lalique have raised about $145,000 for the nonprofit group charity: water, which works to provide safe drinking water to developing nations. The tour ends with a final auction of the Lalique decanter filled with 1.5 liters of the 64-year-old liquid on Nov. 15 at Sotheby's New York".

Let's hope more and more famous names in the fine wine industry will get involved in charity initiatives. Of course chateaux and wine estates will benefit positively from these initiatives in terms of image. But more important is the impact they will have on research and charities in the future. The point here is not to recommend wine estates to do exactly the same as Ehlers Estate's owners in the Napa Valley, who decided that 100 percent of proceeds from wine sales would go to support the nonprofit Leducq Foundation in Paris dedicated to funding international cardiovascular research. The point is just to recommend wine estates to contribute to extraordinary efforts made by charities. If positive communication could pair with making a better world for everyone, then it would make wine stories even more extrordinary. (if you want to help, here are the links related to this story: http://www.everycorkcounts.com; http://www.darmslanewine.com; http://www.themacallan.com; http://www.ehlersestate.com)(More wine news on www.vitabella.fr)