As an official sponsor, JF Hillebrand is playing the vital role of ensuring all the wine collected gets back to Barcelona safely and in optimum condition.

The 2007 project, "Around the world in 80 vineyards", will see two wine-trotters, Nicolas Beausset and Geraldine Reinhold Von Essen, undertake a voyage over five continents, 15 countries and more than 80 vineyards. Their idea is to collect the maximum number of bottles from the wineries so that the auction, upon their return, will be the most profitable.

"JF Hillebrand is very proud to be supporting this exciting and worthwhile project and we are sure it will prove a great success," comments Pierre Bonel, Global Sales Director at JF Hillebrand. "We wish Nicolas and Geraldine the very best in their travels and assure them that while they are enjoying themselves tasting new wines and talking to vineyards around the world, JF Hillebrand will do what we do best – ensure the logistics run smoothly and the wines get back to Barcelona in time for the auction!"

The wine-trotters recently arrived in South Africa on the first leg of their tour and will be travelling the country until mid February. From South Africa the team will then head towards Asia, Australia and New Zealand before crossing the Pacific to go to Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, California and Oregon. Finally they will return to Europe in November, starting with Portugal, going through France, Italy and of course Spain, where the auction will be organised.

The project is a continuation of the Vignes Sans Frontières project which began in France in 2004 and was repeated in 2005. On both previous occasions, JF Hillebrand generously supported the projects by providing logistics services to ensure the successful arrival of the wines in Europe. This is obviously a crucial role to the success of the whole project and as the world’s leading logistics provider to the wine and spirits industry, JF Hillebrand is the ideal partner.