Eighty thousand euros of heart.

An important fund-raising target met through sales of the “Donnafugata Music & Wine Live” CD. Funds collected will be presented at Vinitaly to the Pediatric Heart Surgery School directed by Carlo Marcelletti

A passion for wine is a passion for living. It touches the soul and frees emotions, as music does. And when wine and music get together for charitable purposes, the result is even more meaningful.

This was the case with the “Donnafugata for the Heart” project, which will mark attainment of an important fund-raising goal at Vinitaly 2005: 80,000 euros, a success beyond the rosiest of expectations and achieved by distributing the “Donnafugata Music & Wine Live” CD at the symbolic price of 10 euros. Every cent goes to the Association for the Treatment of Children with Cardiac Diseases to finance the Mediterranean School of Pediatric Heart Surgery directed by Professor Carlo Marcelletti.

The project was launched in 2004 but the idea goes back to 2002. In that year José Rallo—head of the Sicilian winery—and her husband, Vincenzo Favara, spurred by a shared passion for music, began to present Donnafugata wines in a highly original way with the aid of friends who are professional musicians. And so from jazz and Brazilian music—with José as vocalist—came “Donnafugata Music & Wine,” a concert/tasting formula that quickly hit the stages of the many venues where fine wine and live music are at home, from the Kursal in Palermo to the Pedrocchi in Padua, the Cantina Bentivoglio in Bologna and the Casa della Musica in Trieste, with some stops in northern Europe, as well.

It was a meeting with Carlo Marcelletti that led to the fund-raising idea. “Donnafugata Music & Wine” had already spawned a live CD and it became “Donnafugata for the Heart.” Among charitable efforts promoted by an individual company, the Donnafugata project has been one of the most important ever conducted in the wine sector.

Dr. Marcelletti, a world-class pioneer in pediatric heart surgery, directs a top-flight department at the Palermo Civic Hospital, welcoming from everywhere newborns and children afflicted with grave heart diseases. But he wants to extend his commitment to developing countries as well. That has led him to seek aid in funding a specialist school open to young surgeons from countries in the Mediterranean basin. Donnafugata responded to his appeal with great enthusiasm, getting its entire sales force and its clientele involved in distributing the “Donnafugata Music & Wine Live” CD.

Presented last October 11 at the Blue Note in Milan in an exciting and memorable concert, the “Donnafugata for the Heart” project brought on board more than 300 restaurants and specialty shops that stocked the CD. Thousands of wine lovers bought it from the Alps to Sicily in a truly extraordinary performance.

“The 80,000 euros collected,” said José Rallo of Donnafugata, “will enable Carlo Marcelletti’s school to offer several scholarships to doctors from North Africa and the Middle East so they can acquire important special skills and become a valuable resource for improving the quality of health care in their countries of origin. It is a concrete way to bring Mediterranean-basin countries closer together, for better awareness and cooperation. This was our way of fulfilling the social responsibility that every company is called upon to shoulder in the modern global scenario.”

On the day that Vinitaly opens in Verona, the Donnafugata stand will act as host to Dr. Marcelletti in a bid to give further impetus to the fund-raising. In the evening, he will emcee the “Donnafugata Music & Wine Live” concert that the Wine Women Association and fair authorities are organizing in memory of Franca Maculan and Marta Galli in the Verdi Auditorium.

“I never expected so much,” says Carlo Marcelletti. “I and my staff were overwhelmed by the enormous enthusiasm with which Donnafugata espoused our cause. To thank this company and make people aware of this exemplary case of public-private partnership, we decided that inauguration of the first Mediterranean Pediatric Heart Surgery Congress will be held next May 15 at the Donnafugata cellars in Marsala. There, amid the wine barrels that have written the history of Sicilian enology, Palestinian, Israeli, Iraqi, European and American surgeons will sit side by side and seek further progress in medical science and in improving the health of our children.”

Public Relations:

Baldo M. Palermo [email protected] tel. 0039 0923 7242267

Laura Ellwanger [email protected] te. 0039 0923 724258