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April 25, 2008
Last year, there was Manny Being Merlot and Schilling Schardonnay. This year, three more Red Sox players will appear on bottles of wine that will be sold to support baseball-affiliated charities.
Charity Wines, which according to its Web site "partners with superstar athletes and celebrities to create fine wines and help raise funds for charities," is hosting a private party on May 15 in Boston to present The Captain's Cabernet (featuring Jason Varitek, proceeds to benefit Pitching in for Kids), Vintage Papi (featuring David Ortiz, proceeds to benefit The David Ortiz Children's Fund) and SauvignYoouuk Blanc (featuring Kevin Youkilis, proceeds to benefit Kevin Youkilis Hits for Kids).
Last year I actually bought a bottle of CaberKnuckle (featuring Tim Wakefield, proceeds to benefit Pitching In for Kids), and it was pretty good, so that's somewhat of an endorsement.
Boston isn't the only city that is a target market for Charity Wines: the company is also unveiling new Yankees, Mets, Braves, Reds, Cubs, Orioles and Phillies-themed varieties.
Here's some bad advance press, though: The New York Daily News actually called in restaurateur Paul Grieco to do a blind tasting of Red Sox wines vs. Yankees wines (hey, the game was rained out that day), and Grieco gave Bobby Abreu's Finest Merlot the nod over Vintage Papi, and Jorge's Cabernet the advantage over the Varitek variety. I still say 'Tek does a better job working with pitchers, though.
Posted by Mike McDermott 
at 1:18 PM | Permalink
Brett | May 1, 2008 3:14 PM link
That NY review was staged! The wine was still in production at the time of the article and there were no live samples in existance, just mock-ups for newspapers to use for photoshoots.. Had the same article been written in Boston, Boston would have won!
Trust me, the Boston charity wines are of equal quality to the New York charity wines.