Almost since the time that people began buying wine, there have been certain ways of doing things in certain places, especially those associated with fine wines. The wine futures ‘en primeur’ system has existed for decades to allow a select number of people to buy a small allocation of certain wines that are yet to be bottled. It’s a great way to turn stock; the producer doesn’t have to hold onto the wine after bottling and thus, saves the large cost of storage and in return, the buyer gets a good price.
The circle of people offered this allocation is usually very small and based on previous acquisitions they have made through one of the various middlemen they have purchased the wine from. It’s complicated and cliquey – something that wine should never be, in my opinion.
Enter Crurated, the first member-based wine community to offer fractional barrel sales backed by NFT technology where anyone can join. Curious to know more, I spoke to Paolo Sforza, their chief commercial officer, to get the low down.
Paolo, let’s go right back to the beginning. What do you mean by fractional barrel sales and how are you doing it differently?
That’s a great place to start, thank you for asking, Helena. Fractional barrel sales mean a customer has the opportunity to buy highly sought-after wines that are still in barrel and have some bottled especially for them.
Crurated gives its members the opportunity to purchase bottles from certain producers with whom we have a relationship, but we go a step further: our members are able to customise their labels and even choose the bottle formats based on their unique needs. As well, we run exclusive tasting events and masterclasses with the producers, where members can speak directly with the winemaker and get to know other members.
It really is a proper community – and we allow anyone to join, it’s totally inclusive. There’s no ‘you can only have this if you buy tons of that’ malarkey.
It sounds deliciously disruptive to me. The current system is multi-layered, inefficient, expensive and exclusive in the worst sense, so well done. You are also different because you are the first to offer a guarantee of provenance through NFT and Blockchain technology, though. Can you explain what that means in this context?
As you may know, an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is a unique, digital asset that represents real-world objects like art or in this case, wine. These tokens are bought and sold online, with cryptocurrency or normal money, and they cannot be copied or divided. Our members buy the tokens, which are then recorded to a ‘blockchain’, which in turn certifies their transaction, the authenticity and the ownership of their assets. In an industry where provenance of product is key, this is a one stop shop for security and knowing that your wine has been stored correctly.
Fractional ownership has been around for decades but is only just now being applied to this space. And while normally with NFTs, a fraction of something means it’s shared, our concept revolutionises this as owners can own their own, personalised, physical wine bottles – and all with the added value of provenance to further authenticate the wine.
So, who is the team responsible for this and how did it come about?
Crurated was born when a bunch of friends met for pizza and wine at a tiny trattoria in Florence. We were talking about those first bottles that made us fall in love with wine and wanted to find a way to bridge the gap between collectors and their favourite producers.
We launched in 2021 with an emphasis on France and Italy and will gradually expand. There’s now a crack team of specialists to provide personalised services, authentic experiences, seamless logistics, service guarantees, secure wine cellar storage and innovative blockchain technology. Wine is about pleasure and conviviality after all, so we wanted to make this world more accessible, simple, secure, experiential and exciting.
I’m in! How does membership work?
There are currently four different memberships, starting from free explorer options and increasing to three levels of paid membership. Each comes with additional benefits such as being able to store more bottles, access to rare vintages, invitation-only events and bespoke services. Once an account is up and running, members can take advantage of all the information and materials available and start bidding on any barrels that take their fancy.
We focus on a different barrel each week, so there’s always something to play with. In November and December, were working with the likes of Domaine Georges Mugneret-Gibourg, Domaine Pierre Girardin, Domaine Bruno Colin and many more for top end, Burgundy wines.
That sounds fantastic, those producers are serious. So, what’s next?
Crurated is launching a new gifting programme for the 2022 holiday season and beyond, where members can gift French and Italian fine wines from the platform that are stored in the Crurated cellars in Burgundy. Gifts start at 50 Euro and come with a complimentary Explorer membership and a virtual cellar that allows your wines and ship to many countries across the globe. All gifted wines are physically stored in a climate-controlled cellar in Burgundy.
Will you gift something to me?
We’ll see!
Ha ha. Ok, last question: I can see a world where fine wine producers come off ‘La Place’ with all its middlemen and come to you. Is that what you hope will happen?
I don’t know! Ha ha!
Thanks so much, Paolo. All the best with Crurated. I will be checking out the options.
You can find Curated on their website crurated.com and on their social networks: @cruratedofficial (Instagram), Crurated (Facebook), CRURATED (YouTube).
Helena Nicklin is an award-winning drinks writer, broadcaster and competition judge. You can follow her on Instagram @HelenaSips.
