We’re more than half way through Fairtrade fortnight and my conscience has pricked me into action. Being a bargain hunter, having to pay a few pence more than necessary for my bananas, sugar, coffee, doesn’t sit comfortably with me. However, I do have a soul and a social sense of what’s right and wrong. I appreciate that by sheer good luck I happen to have been born in a place and time which means that life for me is good, life is easy and where a few pence actually doesn’t make a difference to me despite what my accountant father and Scottish mother might otherwise have led me to believe.  But a few pence on a Fairtrade bottle of wine makes a significant difference to the producers in Argentina, Chile and South Africa. By selling wine from La Riojana in Argentina, the Co-op has enabled the construction of a water facility and a new secondary school which specialises in agricultural studies.

The Co-op was the first supermarket to sell Fairtrade wine in 2001 , has since sold 30 million bottles and accounts for 60% of all Fairtrade wine in the UK. Obviously there is a natural  synergy between The Co-op and Fairtrade, both businesses with a social ethic and responsibility but these figures rather put other supermarkets to shame. If you’re not familiar with the Co-op’s Fairtrade range there is 20% off during this fortnight which finishes on 9th March.

Rename Fairtrade Fortnight to Feel Good Fortnight and combine your drinking pleasure with the knowledge that you are making a difference to someone’s life, to a whole community today and for their future.

You might like to give the Argentinean easy but flavoursome Pinot Grigio ( £5.59) and the full-on, rich and tasty Malbec (6.79) a try.