Your Drinking Habit Helped Charity

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The Cincinnati International Wine Festival has released their 2008 Report to the Community. This report details all sorts of things, such as how successful the 2008 festival was and their plans for 2009.

This year the Festival raised $250,000 split between 26 different charities. (If anyone knows how I can get them to help out my charity, let me know!) As the Wine Festival describes it, "We are an event based, non profit organization, that happens to host one of the largest parties in the Midwest which raises funds and distributes grants in our area."

Some numbers from the report:

Over 6,000 people attended the festival
Since 1991, the Festival has raised over $2.75 million for charity (that’s fantastic!)
65% of attendees are 35-59 years of age; 28% are under 35 years of age.
Median income of attendees is $90,000.

Okay, that last one made me blink. A couple extra times. Most attendees are below 59 years of age with a median income of $90,000? I knew writing was a poor choice for a profession.

The Honorary Chairs for the 2009 festival are festival favorites Molly and Charles Meeker, of Meeker Vineyard in Sonoma. I loved chatting with Molly at the 2008 event, and I’m always impressed with their wines across the board, including the distinctively bottled "Handprint" Merlot.

One thing I don’t like is that "back by popular demand" is the Special Tasting Room. There are all sorts of reasons I don’t care for this – I find it slightly devalues the experience for people who, unless they want to pay extra, won’t be able to taste some remarkable wines, and I selfishly hate that the Special Tasting Room isn’t open for the trade tasting.

That said, mark your calendars for next year’s festival weekend, Friday, March 13 and Saturday, March 14. Winery Dinners will occur on Thursday, March 12 at area restaurants.