Willi's Wine Bar (13 rue des Petits Champs, Paris 75001, tel 01 42 61 05 09) has long been a favourite hangout for wine lovers in Paris – especially English-speaking ones as it has always been run by Englishmen and often hired its staff from the various corners of the anglophone world. This is one of the few places in Paris where you can enjoy seriously good non-French wine and the wine list there is particularly strong on Rhône and sherry.
Every year Willi's commissions a special poster (we have several of them on the walls of Château Lander-Robinson in the Languedoc). The establishment has donated 1000 signed copies of a special edition of the 2001 poster to benefit the Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund. This is the charitable foundation dedicated to benefiting the families who lost loved ones who worked in the food, beverage and hospitality industries in the World Trade Center attacks.
Photographer Lyu Hanabusa was chosen by Willi's for its 2001 poster, topically entitled 'For peace, love & good wine in the new millennium'). 'The special edition is a way of playing a small part in helping the families of the people from our industry whose hardship and suffering we particularly feel', stated Mark Williamson, proprietor of Willi's Wine Bar. The posters, printed in France on finest quality art paper by Graficaza, display the logo of Windows of Hope, have been stamped by Graficaza and are each personally signed by Mark Williamson.
The donated posters will be sold directly through the offices of Windows of Hope in New York (www.windowsofhope.org) at UD$150 including shipping anywhere in the world thanks to the other companies which have joined Willi's Wine Bar in this initiative:
- FEDEX FOUNDATION offers free delivery to all purchasers of the poster
- TEKSERVE of New York City is storing and packaging each poster for shipping
- C2 MEDIA of New York has assisted in print production.
Posters can also be bought via www.williswinebar.com at 55 Euros for a regular unsigned version and 400 Euros for a signed, fancy Velin edition, but in this case there is no donation to the Windows of Hope.