Further proof that the Burgundy market has officially entered the realm of insanity.
On various levels I feel sad about this - probably also because I still donât understand after reading all the links! 
Will Acker come out with NFRs? [Not From Rudy.]
It would be great if the âinvestorsâ traded wine NFTs while leaving the actual wine to people who drink it.
Hence the fine print: âThe value of the NFT will be decided by the market and is not included in any estimate [of the lot price].â
How much would you pay to hear a producer tout the latest vintage? Thatâs priceless [sic]!
And given that Acker takes crypto as payment, you can spend your funny money to buy funny wine.
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I have read through all the disclosures and press releases, and nowhere are these advertised as tools related to authentication or provenance. Not sure where you all got that- unless someone was just conjecturing as usual.
You are bidding on the wine and a fully separate/separable NFT which you can keep or resell. It is that simple.
I think it is kind of fun actually- and I will be bidding (not sure if I will be winning thoughâŚ)
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Curious if the NFTs include a smart contract, so that the original issuer (Acker/L-B) receives a royalty every subsequent time the NFT is sold.
I read this and it sounds like adding buzzwords to get extra attention and add some false level of credibility to something that could be fake (if not now, then in the future as discussed above). Iâm sure Acker would love to auction that bottle four times at ever increasing prices with the NFT listed as some sort of proof it was still legit.
Also sounds like âfool and his moneyâ stuff.
thatâs awesome.
ironic that this ruffles are feathers when you look at the hobby we are involved with huh ?
I think Gary V rolled out his Veefriends NFTs today, which some include a wine dinner. This is the future of exclusive wine experiences, so not surprising Gary is at the starting line of it.
I have to admit that when I first heard of NFTs for sports, I thought the whole thing was a little silly. But now that it is hitting an area of very special interest to me, I am at the very least intrigued.
It is difficult to predict which completely new phenomena are going to take hold and endure- but I think that could happen with NFTs. I certainly envision them having a broader appeal than crypto-currencies, and thus perhaps being a way to draw more people into the blockchain world. Time will tell.
I might get in trouble for posting this, but since Gary V is âwine relatedâ, I thought this interview was great in understanding how NFTs work and how the future of wine âexclusiveâ experiences will be generated through NFTs. I canât wait until Screaming Eagle and Harlan Estate jump onboard. This will create an even more loyal/cult-like constituency, if rolled out correctly. Iâm quite shocked actually that up to this point, there hasnât been a big-name winery creating a unique offer to sell their wine through Etherium or Bitcoin. The PR that would come from this would likely outweigh any gas fees from the exchange.
Theyâre not even THAT meaningful. Cuz itâs only useful for authentication if EVERY LBA bottle made this year has the NFT. Otherwise, buys the NFT, can fake as many bottles as they want and just claim they are selling the bottles that were produced without a corresponding NFT.
Ok, I donât care if this ruffles feathers. One person said they planned on bidding for the wine. Itâs in this thread.
How ANYONE on this board can even consider giving Acker one red cent is beyond me. JFC is all I have to say.
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I donât think so. At least with our hobby thereâs something tangible to be shown with our purchases. And you donât have to chase 3 or 4+ figure bottles to be in the game. But buying an NFT tied to a physical âreal worldâ good is illogical as the two have no bearing on one another.
Iâm not saying NFTs are completely useless, but I am convinced theyâre 100% useless for non-digital items. If the use case was to provide an authentication of ownership mechanism for a digital good then ok. Like when pharmabro bought that Wu-Tang album. That would have been a good case for using an NFT if the album was delivered digitally. Granted it wasnât but thatâs the best example I can think of other than digital art signing.
None of this touches on the power consumption (and pollution) mining coins generates. According to Cambridge University Bitcoin mining (148.41 TWh per year) currently sits between the nations of Mayalysia (147.21 TWh per year) and Egypt (150.58 TWh per year) in terms of annual power consumption.
source
https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons
And to my knowledge thatâs just mining Bitcoin. If you took all the cryptocurrencies in a basket I expect mining is currently consuming ~1% of the worldâs total electricity. Given the climate situation weâre facing in the near future I struggle to digest and accept this information. Malaysia has ~32 million people and consumes less power than Bitcoin mining. WTF.
Iâm curious, what makes you say that? What do NFTs provide from an âexclusive wine experienceâ perspective when compared to buying a ticket to that wine experience? I tried to watch the video you linked but I couldnât get past 10 minutes.
Iâm curious about this as well. Tom, what is it about these NFTs that you find enjoyable from a wine perspective? Or does it scratch a different itch of yours entirely?
I am fascinated purely from a marketing perspective.
The incredible amount of money being thrown at the wine industry is resulting in a number of interesting phenomena- none of them particularly beneficial to wine consumers at large- but it is what it is and I find some intellectual interest in following them.
For example- the number of special cuvees seems to have accelerated in recent years. Someone taking their parcel of, for example, Richebourg and doing a special bottling of just the old vines or a particular parcel. The result is an exclusive luxury cuvee made in tiny quantities at a huge price- but at the expense of the quality of the regular bottling to which more people have access.
Distinction of site- now this one is actually interesting and potentially good for consumers who have an interest in terroir distinctions and it is something Laurent really got going with back in the mid 1990s. In this case, instead of making several barrels of, for example, a Gevrey-Chambertin AOC, you make 1-2 barrels each of the different named sub-plots and bottle them separately. The rarity factor, more detailed name/site and the potential for selling mixed cases with 1-2 bottles of each are all money makers in a time when consumers are constantly in search of something special on which to spend money.
In Champagne- the gift boxes have gotten quite extravagant in many cases.
And even at auction- Acker now often does winery direct sales where you get a rare vertical or large parcel of the wineryâs offerings plus a custom experience like a visit to the winery, or dinner with the winemaker.
It is a reflection of what is happening in the luxury markets worldwide, and NFTs are potentially a major factor because they are an addition to the product that does not draw physically on the existing assetâs rare raw materials nor does it require the logistical challenges of an in-person experience that would limit potential bidders.
I think they will be all the rage for a while. But the question is what role do they take in a future when wealth inequality is heavily corrected- do they disappear or become a standard expectation with luxury purchases?
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Thanks for the response Tom, I really appreciate it.
I also think theyâll be the rage for a while. With that said I canât help but think theyâll go the way of Beanie Babies instead of major adoption by society.
Another crazy part of NFTs that is less talked about, is the amount of money it takes to create and transfer them. Since most NFTs run on the Ethereum network, they require lots of computation to validate anything being created or transferred on the network. Most of this computation is done by large crypto âminesâ; basically rooms full of GPUs using an insane amount of electricity. When you create or transfer an NFT you have to pay Ether (the cryptocurrency that runs the Ethereum network) to these âminersâ as a reward for doing the necessary computation. Crypto mining is fairly inefficient and require TONS of electricity, so it can cost tens or hundreds of dollars just to create and transfer NFTs. I think I would much rather spend that money on a real bottle of wine!
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