Crurated has launched its membership-based wine delivery service that uses blockchain technology to ensure the authenticity of the product. In addition, the offering aims to connect wine enthusiasts with its producers.
The concept was developed by founder Alfonso de Gaetano, who had previously worked for Google. Gaetano envisions creating a community for wine lovers to appreciate, learn, and discuss the product. Consumers will be able to bid on hand-selected wine bottles from some of the most famous producers in the world while learning about the history behind its manufacturing process through digital content and, when permitted, in-person experiences.
Blockchain is used to track the bottles from the moment they leave the domaine’s doors until it reaches the final client. Every bottle is sealed with a unique QR code that leads to information on the wine’s journey. The data can be accessed by scanning the code with a smartphone or by manually entering the code on Crurated’s website.
The wine bottles selected by Crurated are very selective. Consumers will be bidding on these bottles precisely because they are not easy to get their hands on. Much of the value in these bottles relies on the consumers’ trust in the authenticity of the product they are investing in. As such, blockchain technology goes beyond giving consumers a “pretty picture” of the bottles’ journey by giving them full transparency on the wine they are purchasing.
Furthermore, storage is critical for wines. Crurated has temperature and humidity-controlled warehouses in Burgundy, which will be available for the upper two membership tiers offered by the service. The blockchain technology on the bottles will also track the wine storage conditions, which gives an additional layer of trust to clients re the quality of the product.
Crurated isn’t the first to use blockchain for wines. In Singapore, the TATTOO Wine marketplace runs on Ethereum and traces wine bottles from origin to delivery. The solution helps reduce counterfeit wines and optimizes the wine supply chain. A key difference between TATTOO and Crurated is that Crurated offers a service that builds a community around it instead of a purely transactional marketplace.
Other blockchain solutions in the wine supply chain include Australian agritech Entrust which uses Hedera Hashgraph’s public distributed ledger, and VinAssure, developed by eProvenance and IBM that focuses on tracking the storage conditions of wine.
