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This July, Napa Valley startup Cuvée Collective is launching the world’s first wine NFT club. NFTs have already upended the collectibles marketplace, especially in the art world. Cuvée Collective believes it is time to shake up the wine industry. Cuvee Collective has partnered with wine brands throughout California’s premier wine region to make wine NFT collections for each wine brand. Wine NFTs provide the owner (or holder) brand specific unique and exclusive benefits. Wine NFT benefits are curated to offer access to each brand in a way that is not available to the public, such as wine allocations, experiences, and events.
If you’re unaware, an NFT (non-fungible token) is a digital asset issued in limited edition collections via open ledgers called blockchains. Blockchains allow anyone to view these rare NFTs online and offer the ability to verify the rarity and ownership of the NFT.
“Cuvée Collective was created with the aim to curate the best wine and experiences our wine brand partners have to offer that the general public does not have access to. We hope to grow the wine industry and expand the passion of wine collecting to the younger and more digitally focused generation,” explains Andrew Allison, CEO of Libation Labs, the maker of Cuvée Collective.
Cuvée Collective’s NFTs provide holders with a range of digital and in-person benefits specific to each NFT. Much more robust than a simple membership card in your wallet, Cuvée Collective members will be able to use their NFTs to access a range of experiences, unique to each winery and wine NFT collection. Cuvée Collective has already partnered with more than twenty-five wine brands in Napa and Sonoma Valleys, creating exclusive packages for NFT holders that are otherwise unavailable to the public.
Wine NFT collections and corresponding brands will be announced weekly starting in August, and will include major industry figurehead brands like Robert Craig Winery, Massican Winery, Harumph Wine, and Schug Winery. Each partner brand will have their own limited edition wine NFT collections, with individual NFTs ranging from $100 to $1,000, depending on the value of the experience or benefit offered by each winery partner.
“As technology comes in, our biggest question has been how do we maintain the romance of wine?” claims Elton Slone, CEO of Robert Craig Winery and a previous guest on Cuvée Collective’s Wine in Web3 podcast. “NFTs are a way to bring that experience to new people and give them ownership of that experience and I think they can definitely be used to narrate the story of wine.” As Slone hints at, the value to participating wine brands is clearly engagement with a younger and more tech-savvy wine consumer. Cuvée Collective brings innovation and technology to the traditional wine club model, engaging a heretofore ignored breed of consumers.
“To thrive in the developing digital age, the wine industry must solve the problem of how to reach both the younger generations and a wider range of consumers,” says Allison. “Through tech, we can bring digital transactions and a new consumer engagement model to the wine industry that is experiential, fun, and valuable. With our unique benefits we can ensure that customers continue their love of wine collecting for years to come with Cuvée Collective.”
