Moet Hennessy . Louis Vuitton held their Annual General Shareholders Meeting on May 12, 2005. Here are some chief highlights….

         --Organic sales growth up 11% with all business groups contributing.
         --Net income over 1 billion Euros, up 40%.
         --Continued debt reduction and gearing reached objective of 50%
         --Wines and spirits went up 10 million (in Euros) from 2003 to 2004.
         --Cash flow from operations has increased by two and a half times in the course of four years.
         --Moet Hennessy . Louis Vuitton has maintained solid growth in the U.S. and Asia.
         --For 2005 their goal is to expand luxury products in new territories such as China and to innovate new products.
         --Moet Hennessy . Louis Vuitton also stated in their meeting a strong commitment to preserving the enviroment with such things as “distributing an ‘Enviromental Trendbook’, which will assist creators to take into account enviromental factors in their concepts”.
         --In addition to the enviroment a “commitment to lend support to cultural activities, young people and great humanitarian and public health causes” was also announced.
         --Included with the adjenda was a preposal to renew the appointments of Messrs Nicolas Bazire, Antonio Belloni, Diego Della Vall, Jacques Friedmann and Gilles Hennessy as members of The Board of Directors.

An Allied Domecq update….

         --Taken from Allied Domecq’s website posted May 13, 2005: Constellation Brands Consortium has put in an indicative proposal to buy the alcohol distribution giant. There are still many factors and conditions to be worked out regarding this proposal, and it is not at this time at the stage of being a firm offer. All parties still continue to discuss this recent indicative proposal. Allied Domecq is also continuing to work out an offer made by Pernod Ricard S.A. which was announced on 21st April, 2005.

From the Golden State….

          --The Californian Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA)—a non-profit orgaization established by the Wine Institute and Californian Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG)—recently elected new officers. Jim Unti of Mission Bell Winery will now be the CSWA Board Chairman.
          Dr. Ann Thrupp is now the newly appointed Managing Director of CSWA. She will oversee the Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices (SWP) Program. Dr. Thrupp will maintain her current position as Manager of Organic Development and North Coast Grower Representative at Fetzer Vineyards. Brown-Forman, Fetzer’s parent company, is donating part of Dr. Thrupp’s work time to show their support for the program.
         You can read more news and information regarding the CSWA at: http://www.sustainablewinegrowing.org/index.html

In South Africa….

          --Duimpie Bayly has been elected as chairman of the South African National Wine Show Association.

          --As part of a broad economic plan The Department of Economic Development and Tourism, Western Cape Provincial Government has brought into place the Western Cape Implementation Strategy for Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment. It appears wine will play a role in reducing South Africa’s enormous unemployment problem. Consultation drawing from industry players from specific sectors will take place during May and June 2005. Seven workshops will be held across the province with wine being one of the seven themes. The resolutions from these workshops will then be incorporated into the Micro-economic Development Strategy and implementation will begin the third quarter of 2005. Some of the funding initiatives regarding wine include The Provincial Tourism Bursary Fund giving access to the wine industry and wine tourism fields of study for undergraduate students.