Many fine wines never make it from the cellar to the dinner table due to an overly complicated supply chain hindered by complex customs, countless middlemen, and numerous tariffs. Amazing wines remain unknown to the world simply because distribution is too difficult.
The market is ripe for disruption, and one company is poised to do just that. Winechain uses Web3 technologies such as NFTs and community capital to directly connect wine lovers with great wine makers.
“Wine distribution has so many middlemen,” says Nicolas Mendiharat, co-founder of Winechain. “Great bottles sit in cellars for years, without anyone knowing if they will ever be drunk before it’s too late. Wine makers want to privilege the real drinker in the end by giving them the best experience and a direct channel. The bottles are shipped only when their NFT is burnt. And people who prove that they drink the bottles get status.”
Winechain has created a wine marketplace platform that allows you to buy fine wines directly from the makers themselves. Using NFTs, wine becomes an asset. You can either burn your NFT and the wine is shipped to you, or you can trade the bottles of wine (which benefits the winemakers in the end by giving them a percentage of the sale). Winechain covers storage costs of the wine for an initial free period, making the trade between end customer and wine maker as direct as possible.
Although it officially launches in December, it has thousands on its waiting list. And it’s prepared to give back to its eager community.
The company has already raised $6 million through established investors, like VC firms and famous wine families in Europe, but they tapped Fairmint to power an offering for their winery partners and their community of family, friends, and fans.
The founders of Winechain were passionate about using the Fairmint portal because it fulfilled their *modus operandi *in a few ways.
First, it’s revolutionary and innovative tech, like their own.
“The Fairmint system is genius. It’s so advanced and also decentralized. Investors buy on chain and have a token they can exchange after 12 months,” says Nicolas.
Secondly, Fairmint allows them to reward the people they want to incentivize, keeping a larger community engaged. Winechain has already started implementing the Fairmint portal, and envisions it integrating perfectly with their community of NFT-fluent buyers.
“Phase One [of the community cap table] was open to winery partners, family and friends,” says Nicolas. “We have over 30 investors already.”
He says that Phase Two will be a larger strategy of building communities with the wine makers themselves, as well as putting a button on their site to make investing easier. This plan will not only raise more money for the startup, but begin to benefit the wine distributors themselves as the value of the company goes up.
In the final phase, Phase Three, Winechain plans to link token possession to the level of status of a user. When people own a number of tokens, they will have access to rarer drops. They will also be able to sell tokens, creating a secondary market.
As a serial entrepreneur who has been in tech for 25 years and built a number of successful products, Nicolas is excited about the future of Winechain and Fairmint. Web 3.0 is bringing a new future to the world, one that rewards users for their loyalty and passion. With Fairmint, Winechain can reward their users not only with great wines, but also with equity in their growing business.
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