Giving Grapes: Philanthropic Wineries Making a Difference

by Rachel Duchak

Grapes are a generous bunch.  Each cluster offers dozens of individual packages of sugars and tannins, seeds and skins. “Have more,” this fruit seems to say, bubbling with berries, “have another one.”  Long after they have become wine, these giving grapes likewise inspire a generous nature in others.  We bring wine as gifts for those who’ve invited us for dinner, especially during the holiday months.  We open a special bottle from our collection of decidedly “not everyday” wines when we’re hosting a gathering for those who also love and appreciate wine. If we’re having a good time around the table telling stories with those we love, we’ll often pour another glass to prolong the pleasures of conversation.

Many wineries take the generosity of grapes a step further and donate their finished wines to help raise funds for charitable causes, whether through auctions, raffles, or the like.  However, a small but dedicated collection of wineries has made a serious commitment to philanthropy such that it serves as the exclusive focus of a particular label or, in some cases, all the wine produced by a winery. In the case of Talley Vineyards’ Mano Tinta label or the entire line of wines produced by Humanitas and Ehlers Estate, the grapes involved with these wines give so more.

• Mano Tinta, Talley Vineyards: Arroyo Grande, California
• Humanitas Wines: Sonoma and Napa Valleys, California
• Ehlers Estate: St. Helena, Napa Valley, California

Mano Tinta, Talley Vineyards
All proceeds from the sale of this wine assist those community organizations that provide services to farm workers and vineyard workers in San Luis Obispo County

In 2004, Brian and Johnine Talley started the San Luis Obispo County Fund for Vineyard and Farm Workers, an endowment initially funded from several monetary contributions.  Given the healthy start of the endowment, the Talleys hoped to discover a way to sustain this fund and this fund-raising momentum. The winemaker at Talley Vineyards, Leslie Mead, wondered if it might not work to make a wine from donated grapes and channel the proceeds into the Fund, which would then flow out to the community through the various services channels most relevant to these individuals who pick the grapes that make the wine possible.

Would the Central Coast wine community participate in Mano Tinta, a community project to make a wine from 100% donations that would direct 100% of the sales to benefit a community foundation linked to charities serving the needs of local farm workers and vineyard workers? Absolutely. Almost immediately, the wine community of San Luis Obispo County generously donated all the fruit for the project. Three vineyards in San Luis Obispo donate fruit while an international mix of donors have supplied materials and equipment that have made the project successful from its inaugural year. This evolving project works with the quality ingredients provided by others, the proceeds of which go to others. Organizations receiving assistance from Mano Tinta funds address the following issues facing workers and their families: education, child welfare, housing, literacy, health care, and prosthetic limbs.

It’s been surprising to many of those involved with the Mano Tinta project how it has gained momentum so quickly. In 2008, for example, there were three times too many people for the tasks involved with bottling the 2006 vintage. Everyone wanted to do a little something to help out even though there were far too many helpers.  Together, they made short work of the labeling and packing of 500 cases. So many people want to be involved because “Mano Tinta is a very honest product,” says Anna Heacock, Talley’s marketing and regional sales manager.

Talley serves as a conduit for people who love wine to give back to the grape pickers who make the production of every vintage possible. The particular Mano Tinta wine made in a given year depends on what fruit gets donated. One year it was all Syrah.  Other years have produced blends of fruit that work together elegantly. A strong integrity infuses the project, from the donations of everything for winemaking and labeling to the art show that materializes when local artists submit their work for the label. Artists range in age from 6 years old to 80+.  Probably one of the more difficult things with Mano Tinta is to decide upon just one image that will grace that year’s vintage.  So many wonderful, thoughtful entries are submitted every summer and the numbers keep growing, as does the quality of the art.

The Talley family has worked to ensure that this project enjoys longevity. They recommend to other wineries that also might consider starting up such a project to keep it local.  By keeping this project local, the proceeds from the sale of Mano Tinta wine in San Luis Obispo more directly supports the farm workers and vineyard workers who live in the San Luis Obispo community. Central Coast restaurants also get involved every August and pour Mano Tinta by the glass.

If you know of a winery that wants to start up a similar program, the folks at Talley Vineyards would be happy to provide counsel for how to initiate and sustain the project.  Experience suggests that having a winemaker head up the project works well. If anyone reading this or someone you know might want to donate fruit or other materials for the Mano Tinta project, contact winemaker Leslie Mead (leslie@talleyvineyards.com).

Talley Vineyards: www.talleyvineyards.com

Humanitas
Seven percent of revenues from Humanitas wines are channeled back into those communities where consumers purchased the wine

“I just wanted to do something good,” says Judd Wallenbrock, proprietor of Humanitas wines. “It’s that simple.” After discovering that he was not well suited to the soup-kitchen facet of volunteering, Wallenbrock began to develop his pure model of philanthropic winemaking. Following Paul Newman’s model, he researched cause marketing and cause capitalism but, instead of salad dressing, he wanted to produce wine. “Why not wine? Wine is a part of civilization. Why can’t it be channeled for the greater good?” he wondered.

Eventually, Wallenbrock discovered Yvon Chouinard’s Let My People Surf, which influenced his thinking about revenues vs. profits. While considering Patagonia’s “1% for the Planet” model of giving a percentage of revenues to charity rather than profits, he concluded that it’s “time for businesses to think more like charities.” Ever since 9/11, there seemed to be a deeper giving current running through the country, including the wine industry. It seemed like the time was ripe for developing the concept of people (and wine) working together for the good all.

Wallenbrock wanted to really differentiate his winery from other wineries in the county of Sonoma which, as he tells it, is “polluted” by wine production operations. Every year since 2002, after securing grapes from a variety of quality vineyards in and around the Napa Valley, Humanitas has developed and marketed its wines. Without any tasting room or even physical location, in keeping with the goal of low overhead for the project, Humanitas wines donate 7% of their revenues, equivalent to 100% after-tax profits, to local charities.

Focused on more grassroots-levels of assistance (i.e., hunger, housing, education) that operate on a fundamental, foundational level in a community and function to offset problems down the line, Humanitas hand picks the charities that receive funding.  Humanitas gives to charities local to where the consumer buys the wine.  They function on a very regionalized model: the more a community buys Humanitas wine, the more community services funding that region will receive from Humanitas. The charities that receive funding from Humanitas sometimes become the sales force for these wines.  One manager of a Colorado Habitat for Humanity office asked Wallenbrock at one point early in their philanthropic relationship, “So, are you telling me that the more wine you sell, the more money we make?”  Talk about win-win.

“My art is the concept of philanthropic winemaking,” declares Wallenbrock. This form of charitable giving or, in this case, charitable drinking, seems to really appeal to consumers, restaurant owners, and even very busy wine distributors. Distributors approach Humanitas to carry these wines, which is almost unheard of in a market saturated with so very many labels. Designed for people attracted to the art of wine and, better yet, the good we can do with wine, Humanitas produced 2500 cases in 2008.

Lovely Ehlers Estate in St. Helena, California, produces wine in the choice location of northern Napa Valley.  With its stone buildings and towering olive trees, this winery might seem to the tourist driving along Highway 29 like so many other beautiful properties with vineyards along this road that runs the length of the valley. However, this winery is decidedly unlike any of its neighbors. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of Ehlers Estate wines support the Leducq Foundation, a highly regarded international not-for-profit philanthropic trust dedicated to funding cardiovascular research by scientists from around the world who work together across international borders.

Promoting fundamental change through international research, the Leducq Foundation currently supports 23 multi-year research projects and has awarded over $170 million in grants to researchers from sixteen countries over the past ten years.  Every recipient of a grant from the Leducq Foundation must freely share the results of their research with others in the international community. Also, each project’s proposal and results are uploaded to a shared database of information accessible to everyone. The Leducq Foundation does not fund projects that don’t promise a long reach with the scientific results. Every project receiving grant funding from the Foundation must focus on basic research that will touch the lives of many individuals.

It was essential to Jean and Sylviane Leducq that any knowledge gained through the results of their support would be used to “bring relief to any and all who suffer from heart disease.” The legacy of Ehlers Estate and the Leducqu Foundation allowed Jean Leducq to integrate and sustain his love of wine together with his philanthropic impulse and a personal interest in heart disease research. A passion for Bordeaux wines and a love of America inspired Jean Leducq to found Ehlers Estate winery in the Napa Valley. When he passed away, he left Ehlers Estate in trust to the Leducq Foundation, secure in the knowledge that the land would continue to bring forth great wines for generations to come to benefit those who suffer from cardiovascular and neurovascular disease.

Like many of their neighbors, Ehlers Estate produces Bordeaux varietals. They biodynamically manage 40 acres of vineyards at the narrow point in the northernmost part of Napa Valley where a steady breeze cools the grapes and makes the consistent production of fine wines from this estate a more likely guarantee (although nothing is guaranteed to those who work the earth). Produced from certified-organic, estate grown fruit, the wines of Ehlers Estate possess an authenticity and integrity all their own. How fortunate for wine lovers as well as the beneficiaries of the research projects funded by the Leducq Foundation that the stewards of this winery have engaged in such a serious commitment to this property.
(View a larger image of the Ehlers Estate vineyard map)

Winemaker Kevin Morrisey feels Ehlers Estate is his “dream winery” to manage in terms of the lay of the land, the fruit quality, the vineyard’s location and size, the presence of the correct varietals, the international culture of the owners and the employees, and the rich history of this winery that reaches back to 1886. Returning the profits to the Leducq Foundation every year just completes the sweetness of the dream.

Always, it comes back to the quality of the wine.  The daily toil at this winery reflects a tradition of honoring the legacy of Jean Leducq as well as the terroir of the vineyard, all the while producing Ehlers-quality wine. It’s the wine that pleases and awakens the body, mind, and soul. The giving nature of the grapes echoes the generosity of the founders as well as those people who craft these grapes into wine with the power to give even more.

Ehlers Estate: www.ehlersestate.com

Leducq Foundation: www.fondationleducq.org

2008-2009 grants awarded by the Leducq Foundation

• Redox and nitrosative regulation of cardiac remodeling:  novel therapeutic approaches for heart failure
• Leducq Transatlantic Network on therapeutic arteriogenesis and metabolism modulation
• Structural alterations in the myocardium and the substrate for cardiac fibrillation
• Multi-scale modeling of single ventricle hearts for clinical decision support

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[Rachel Duchak lives in the Central Coast of California and owns Language Artisans, a writing company specializing in wine public relations.]

Are you a fan of other philanthropic wineries? Broaden the horizon of this topic in the comments below.