Bushfire Wine Raffle brings in $250k

I'm going to quote Max Allen directly here as he puts it particularly succinctly.

"AUSTRALIAN WINE TRADE BUSHFIRE RAFFLE RAISES $245,450

Four weeks ago I sent an email to subscribers of Red, White and Green describing the scene in the Yarra Valley after the bushfires of February 7. I also told you about the Australian Wine Trade Bushfire Raffle, initiated by Bert Werden from WineStar.com.au and enthusiastically supported by winemakers, importers, distributers and online retailers across the country.

Well the lucky winners of that raffle were drawn this afternoon.

Steve Webber from De Bortoli, whose Yarra Valley vineyards were surrounded by flame on Black Saturday, drew the 33 winning numbers from the hat (well, actually, it was an ice bucket).

The winners of the first prize - a cool $25,000 worth of top-shelf booze - were a couple who had bought their raffle tickets from VisitVineyards.com. The winning ticket numbers for all 33 prizes will be posted on WineStar.com.au soon (as soon as Bert gets back from a well-earned long lunch).

Bert told me he was overwhelmed by the response to his passionate plea for help during the week after the tragic fires - and even more moved by the extraordinary amount of money raised.

‘Within 24 hours of me sending out an email calling for donations we had received offers of about $70,000 worth of wine,’ he said. ‘I had to stop accepting any more after a couple of days because I thought we would never be able to raise enough money to match it, and we were going to look silly. But people have been fantastic: some of the online retailers had people coming in and buying 100 tickets at a time - at $25 each!’

The money raised will go to the Australian Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

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(Please feel free to use this information, reproduce it, pass it on, tell your friends ... whatever you do, though, please also open a bottle of something really, really good - Victorian, preferably - and drink a toast to Bert and all the other generous souls in the wine trade who made this happen.)"

Max Allen
www.redwhiteandgreen.com.au

2009 Yields - Down 20% on last year?

A report out today, published on Winebiz.com.au (here), has suggested that the 2009 Australian vintage crush will be 20% down on last year, with estimates of 1.48 MT. Without sounding like the ultimate pessimists, we read a very similar report produced around this point last year which pointed at a very similar amount in last years crush.

History will show instead that we ended up with an enormous 1.8MT+ crush that only served to fuel the oversupply crisis. So the question on the tips of everyones lips then is - how much juice will we produce in 2009?.......