One year and three days after my sister, my daughter, my beautiful Mum's partner and our wider family and I said our last goodbye to Mum, I was lucky enough to attend the 2024 Hawke's Bay Charity Wine Auction. This year the auction raised $325,697 for the Cranford Hospice. Mum would have loved this event - for the bubbly, the festive spirit of celebration in giving (she was one of life's givers) and for the incredibly humbling spirit of generosity because 100% of the funds raised go directly to the hospice.

The auction is now in its 33rd year and it has come from humble beginnings where funds raised for the hospice were counted in tens of thousands to today's hundreds of thousands - with higher hopes on the horizon. This amazing event deserves all of our support. While few of us remain unscathed by the loss of a loved one to cancer, most of us know that the most unexpected things can occur at any time. Thank you to the organisers of the auction for their foresight, their organisation and their generosity.

I have written a longer piece about this year's Hawke's Bay Charity Wine Auction in my upcoming column, in vino veritas, in Drinksbiz magazine, which comes out in early December.

Highlights of this year’s Hawke’s Bay Charity Wine Auction included, among many others:

• The double auctioning of four decades of Te Mata Estate Coleraine 1982 to 2021, which raised more the second time it was auctioned, giving more money to the Cranford Hospice. 

• Enormous goodwill and generosity from both the winemakers and the bidders, despite the country’s and global economic downturn.

• Bargains are not part of the deal – high quality wine and digging deep to help those in need is very much the name of the game at the Hawke's Bay Charity Wine Auction.

• Vilaura Methode Traditionelle; the best bubbly made in the Bay today as a new-ish venture, made entirely from Chardonnay as a Blanc de Blanc and aged for 48 months on tirage (yeast lees in bottle). An outstanding edition to Hawke’s Bay’s already diverse wine offerings. 

• The Cranford Hospice extended its heartfelt thanks to the Hawke's Bay wine community and all who attended this year's charity wine auction - "Your presence and participation made a significant difference, and we are deeply grateful for your support," said Andrew Lesperance, CEO of Cranford Hospice.