Wine to Fight Breast Cancer

"Cleavage Creek" wine created out of personal tragedy.

ByABC News via logo
June 28, 2008, 8:21 AM

June 28, 2008 — -- Budge Brown lives on a small ranch at the foot of Pope Valley, Calif., part of the state's famous wine region.

He has a house and a beautiful vineyard on about 18 acres. But something is missing, or rather, someone.

After a battle with breast cancer that lasted more than seven years, Brown's wife of 48 years, Arlene, passed away in 2005.

But Brown continued to fight the disease in an unusual way: by creating a new line of wines called "Cleavage Creek" and donating a percentage of the profits from the winery toward cutting-edge breast cancer research.

Brown also decided to put the hope right on the label by using photographs of breast cancer fighters.

"Of course my family said, 'Oh, you can't do that,'" Brown told "Good Morning America." "But the more I thought about it, the more things began to fall into place."

Two years ago Lori Sacco, a single mother of three, began the same battle Arlene Brown had fought against a deadly form of breast cancer. Sacco decided to pose for Cleavage Creek because she believed it would help educate others.

"The scariest day is the day that you find out that you have cancer," Sacco told "GMA." "It's also this huge opportunity to walk into something scary and walk through it with grace."

Sacco posed along with other women who were battling cancer and said that the mere creation of the wine company gave her more hope.

Though Brown donates a significant percentage of the wine's sales profits to cancer research, he is adamant about refusing monetary donations.

"I don't want anyone's money," Brown says on his Web site. "I want to sell great wine, give a portion of our gross to the best sources for a cure, raise awareness and celebrate survival. Everybody wins."

As he walked through a garden he keeps in memory of his wife, Brown wondered how she would feel about what he continues to do for her and for others.

"She hasn't told me," he said, with a smile. "I think she'd like it."