UK trade boosts charity wine auction

Some of the UK’s biggest wine merchants have donated wine to an online charity auction to help support those living with a spinal cord injury.

Sophie Morgan

Having launched its Lots for Charity feature earlier this year by raising £10,000 for the drinks trade charity The Benevolent, Grape Pip is now turning its attention to another worthy cause: The Back Up Trust, which supports those who have suffered life changing injuries due to spinal cord injuries.

The organisation was brought to the attention of Caspar Bowes, founder of Grape Pip, by a friend in the drinks trade whose daughter was left paralysed in a road accident at the age of 18. Sophie is now a journalist and BBC presenter and recently appeared in a program exploring the worst places in the world to be disabled.

Grape Pip is an online wine auction site offering collectors the chance to sell wines of guaranteed provenance, as well as the option to donate wine as part of its Lots for Charity.

Announcing its new charity partner, Caspar Bowes said: “Having raised £10k for The Benevolent, I am convinced that this can become the go-to place for the disposal of unwanted wine stocks for charitable causes going forward. I believe Lots For Charity has the potential to raise huge sums over time!”

Grape Pip’s new charity auction launched on 24 August and has already attracted donations from Farr, Bancroft, Hallgarten, Mentzendorff, Corney & Barrow, Decorum, Uncorked, Morgan Classic Wines and Bowes Wine.

For more information and to bid on a charitable lot click through to www.grapepip.com/category/Charity.