5:00 Fridays

Drink wine. Donate to a worthy cause. No catch.

Well, the catch is the great wine secret I'm about to let you in on. Shuffle in a tish closer, won't you? Oh hell, let me drag out my soap box. It's practically an extra appendage anyway. Are you listening?

Lean on in, friends.

OneHope

I said ONEHOPE.

This grassroots wine company has a big philanthropic heart. Red wine and my bleeding heart pair nicely together. OneHope donates 50% of its profits to various causes. Fifty. Percent. That is no piddly 5% or the like that we usually hear about. For those of you who are as bad at math as I am: that means half. One. Half. Of. All. Profits.

This is not chump change.

I know that my readers can help make a dent in some of the great causes that OneHope supports. This is a lovely wine to serve at your holiday open house, block party, neighborhood progressive dinner, office gathering, book club, bunco group, tennis social, family dinner, or any ole time you're popping a cork with a friend. OneHope wine also makes a generous gift to friends, colleagues, or neighbors. I really can't think of a better way to capture the holiday spirit of giving. And for the record, I'm not being paid to tell you all this. I happened to try the wine at the BlogHer conference in July and again at my local grocery store.

If you drink Chardonnay, support the fight against breast cancer. My wine drinking pal Jenn will thank you for it.

Are you a Zinfandel kind of guy? Well, word on the street is that you can imbibe your favorite cool weather wine and support the troops while you're at it.

Merlot? AIDS awareness. All these years after its story hit the presses we are still fighting this battle on many fronts.

So you say Sauvignon Blanc is more your speed? Drink up and help save our planet. Make sure you recycle that bottle, mkay?

Cabernet Sauvignon, my personal favorite for these winter months, helps spread the word about autism awareness.

OneHope wine is available at my local Harris Teeter and in grocery stores in 14 states. They'll ship to 47 more states. Just have a look here to see where you can find it.

Now hop on to Facebook to become a fan by December 31. OneHope is donating $1.00 to charity per fan through December 31, 2009 (and "charity" is not capitalized so I don't think charity is a girl living in a Chevy van somewhere). Another easy way to donate a buck. It might not seem like a lot, but in aggregate, that dollar makes a difference.

Cheers! And here's to OneHope making a million and one differences.