It appears that once again Mondavi is pioneering a new frontier in Napa. Could this be a new revolution of wine fomo? However, just like all crypto and new trends, the swings may be gigantic. Could an allocation soon become a NFT? If so, what blockchain will they use (Ether, Solana, etc)? Would your membership NFT give you additional perks- more exclusivity and/or possible rewards? I can see people flexing their rare wine NFTs, just like Bored Apes. I mean let’s face it, whoever made it onto the Macdonald allocation list is kinda special, right? I’d totally rock a MacD NFT as my twitter image if I was part of the lucky few. It seems to be a natural fit for more exclusive and luxury brands (i.e Screagle, Lafite, etc), but what about the mainstream wine world? This NFT technology seems to only be ramping up, so I wonder what other ways NFTs might change (good or bad) the wine world. What say you?
Dave Powell’s NFT story here
This seems to have about the same utility as Bored Apes.
I mean Yao Ming has been doing it. It makes sense overall to help prevent counterfeiting.
I may have missed it, but I did not see on the Mondavi page what they are asking for these NFTs. Do we know the price yet?
And how does it do that exactly?
From Mondavi:
“Each of the 1,966 bottles in this series comes with a unique authentication code that when scanned, brings the user to the transaction record for the corresponding NFT purchase, creating immutable proof of authenticity that will forever live on the blockchain.”
I guess this means if, 20 years from now, I buy one of these bottles from someone and scan the code, I can see that the “someone” I am buying it from is, in fact, the rightful owner. (Which they can demonstrate by producing the NFT.)
The amount of NFTs created show the supply of the wine left available. So if more bottles of the wine somehow became available you’d know that there are x number of fake bottles on the market. Also, depending on how it’s used it can be associated with a specific bottle so NFT #0001 is the first bottle sold of wine X.
So like a serial number?
Mighty optimistic to assume whatever blockchain this NFT will be hosted on will still be around in 20 years.
The NFT is just a digital receipt. The bottle can exchange hands without transacting the NFT. The NFT does not track the physical state of the bottle or whether it was stored properly or consumed.
What you are describing can be done with serial numbers and a traditional centralized database. But I guess it’s hard to cash in on something like that.
https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2021/05/nfts-join-the-fight-against-wine-fraud
“Even when it’s resold, only the NFT gets moved,” he says. “The bottle of wine will stay where it is.”
The NFT is like a digital proof of purchase certification so just like a physical certification those may or may not end up in the hands of the next owner of the item. I’ve heard of issuers of the NFTs being burned after sale. So this authentication is basically only to guarantee the original purchaser 100% guarantee authenticity. You can digitally remove NFTs from the blockchain.
So… what is being done here that cannot be done with a centralized database? Aside from me being able to change my Twitter profile picture to a bored bottle of Chateau Lafite?
Nothing. I don’t think we want to get into the specifics of blockchain vs centralized database with a given owner on this board/thread. But can you do this with a centralized DB? Yes. In a way that is immutable, secure and transparent? If you want to. Can it help to leverage something that already exists for this purpose? Yes.
I think part of the point is, it could be done in other ways, but it has not (too my knowledge).
Does that fact that this Mondavi has the letters N, F, and T associated with it, make it more valuable. It should not. (It may, but there is no real reason it should vs. say, a similar offering on a centralized database.)
But it is interesting as a concept. I am not that interested in this specific offering, but I am interested in the concept. And, John, the OP, made very good points as it relates to coveted mailing list spots…
Is immutability actually a desirable property? If somebody hacks my credentials, they can take “ownership” of my entire collection of “wine”. If some retailer or auction house fat-fingers my information, my purchases are either now owned by somebody else or by nobody (and completely unrecoverable). Doesn’t sound like that great of a system.
Perhaps an oversimplification may be that a centralized database requires more on the owner than having the blockchain manage. Dedicating a server and having to worry about that data being verifiably accurate might not be worth the expense. Sure, for high end luxury wines this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if the NFT is tied to ownership and depending on how it’s implemented whoever owns the NFT also owns the wine. Just knowing the unique serial number of a wine bottle isn’t enough for a wine storage site to allow someone to withdraw the wine. Having the NFT will proves you’re the owner. I could see NFTs be used for insurance purposes. If your house suffered a flood and if every wine had a NFT it would be fairly straight forward instead of collecting all the receipts for every bottle.
Like you mentioned it’s sort of just another way to have a digital receipt, but it’s one that keeps updating.
Yep. Not ideal in all situations. Blockchain is just another tool in the IT toolbox.
I forget where I saw it (not on the Mondavi site, but in some article), but the price will supposedly be $3500. They are awfully cool bottles, but I’m not in for a fancy wine in a fancy bottle at that price.
Interesting thanks. Easy pass for me too, but I am intrigued by the overall concept.
But Mondavi is owned by Constellation, right? And they sold off some of their lower end properties supposedly to play in the higher end market. They kept the high end stuff - Meiomi, the Prisoner, Kim Crawford, Ruffino, and Mondavi, and OK also Schrader.
So is this how they do “high-end”? Not by making world class wine but by attaching some other artifact?
Imagine if you can get a bottle of the Prisoner and you know exactly who has owned it for thirty years. What price for such peace of mind?