:: WHO'S STARTED VINTAGE?
Karina posted a note on the forum the other day to ask "Who's started vintage?" -- that's right, the busiest time of the wine year is on us again!

Add your stories (either as a note on the forum or as a blog), upload your photographs (yes, we know you take candid shots of each other and we want to see them), and how about a bit of video too? Anything you can post on YouTube or any of the other video sites can be uploaded to BoozeMonkey, and as I said around this time last year, we'd all love to know more about vintage and what it involves... so whether you've got purple hands or you're purple from the waist down (see Mike & Helen's photos at Gemtree to understand what I'm talking about), please take some photos or a video and tell us all about it.

:: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!
No, I'm not too cheap to buy a card or to pick up the phone, but I'll take the opportunity to wish my Mum a happy birthday on BoozeMonkey too because I know you will all raise a glass to her good health. Ha! Like you even need an excuse to raise a glass!

No doubt she will be spending the day in comfort, waited on hand and foot by my Dad (much the same as any other day then...). And if last year is anything to go by, she will spend most of tomorrow in bed nursing a hangover. Ahhh, we never learn, do we? And unfortunately that seems to run in the family. I'm glad my birthday isn't till July -- I have plenty of time to stock up on orange juice and pain killers.

:: HAITI WINE AUCTION THANK YOUS
The Wine For Haiti appeal is going great guns, with more donations coming in every day.

I am delighted to say that many of the Booze Cruise wines are appearing on the list of donations (come on guys, let's get them ALL on there) and some high profile magnums have been donated by our good friends at Constellation Wines and at Fosters which will not only sell for a great deal of cash, but which will help generate some much-needed publicity for the appeal:

• 4 magnums of Houghton Jack Mann Cabernet Sauvignon 2000 (valued at $250+ per bottle),
• 4 magnums of Hardys Eileen Hardy Shiraz 1996 (signed by Bill Hardy and also valued at $250+)
• a magnum of the 2004 Penfolds Grange, signed by Peter Gago (I won't even tell you how much that is... it's one of those "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" bottles)

We also have six bottles of the Summerfield 2001 Indulgence which last year raised $1750 at auction for the bush-fire appeal. It would be great to see it hit $2000 this year, wouldn't it?

Talking of publicity, we owe thanks to several generous people who have put a lot of time and effort into helping us to promote the appeal in the past couple of weeks, namely: Wella Forrest from Run Forrest, Deborah Gee (aka The Toasted Hostess) who has made a video to help generate more publicity for the appeal, Stuart Gregor at Liquid Ideas (who promoted the appeal last week on his 3AW radio show) and Angie Bradbury at Dig Marketing who has helped us out with our new press release and who will be distributing it for us to the media later today. We wouldn't be able to get the mainstream media exposure we need without their help, so we are very grateful to them for their time and their expertise, all of which have been donated for free to help the auction succeed.

:: LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
I wanted to find a nice segue into this, but my brain is fried from too many late nights, so just pretend the last paragraph ended with something about love, okay? Thanks...

Talking of love (you see how that works so much better than just introducing the topic out of the blue?), I heard this the other day and I think you'll agree that we can all learn from it:

"If you love something, set it free.  If it doesn't even notice it's been set free because the game is on, you're probably married to it."

Have a great week.

Cheers!

Matt