John Ragan’s DeVine Intervention
“We wanted to do more than take food to the Rockaways,” said John Ragan, the Wine Director of the Union Square Hospitality Group, and the man behind DeVine Intervention. An online wine centric auction to raise funds to benefit the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, the auction begins today and runs until April 7, 2013. With 250 lots up for grabs, including a trip for four to the Robert Sinskey guest house in Napa, a Team Machine SLR01 Full Carbon bike signed by 17-time Tour de France rider George Hincapie, and a number of private dinners with wine writers, DeVine Intervention hopes to raise at least $250,000, with every penny going directly to the Mayor’s Fund, who will handle all of the credit cards used for bidding.
When setting up the auction, Ragan had four goals in mind: to get the food and wine world involved, to make it easy for participants to say yes, to make their efforts painless, and for there to be no expenses so that “every penny could get to the end point.”
Beginning today, these lots are open for bidding. With bottles of DRC, Krug, Laroche and a selection of large format etched bottles up for bidding, most of which have been donated by members of the local restaurant community, this is the first online wine auction ever conducted for the Mayor’s Fund.
