April 17, 2023 • 24 mins
The founder of Wine.com is coming out of retirement to be a partner of the world's first NFT Wine Club. After selling one of the largest online retailers of wine in the world Wine.com in 1999 for 10 million dollars, founder David Harmon sought out a new opportunity with NFT Wine Club and the Blockchain. Members get access to their real world vineyard in Napa, California, digital vine owner ship, wine reality game, educational workshops, and their NFT Wine Fest live event held in their vineyard. Their NFT Wine Club has 3600 real-life vines that are tied to a digital NFT on the blockchain. They are bridging the artistry of NFTs, crypto, and fine wine!
Guest: David Harmon - Chief Wine Officer
Website ➜ https://bit.ly/NFTwineCLUB
2-Bottle NFT Monthly Club ➜ https://bit.ly/NFTWineMonthly
VIP NFT Founders Mint ➜ https://bit.ly/NFTWineVIP
Guest: David Harmon - Chief Wine Officer
Website ➜ https://bit.ly/NFTwineCLUB
2-Bottle NFT Monthly Club ➜ https://bit.ly/NFTWineMonthly
VIP NFT Founders Mint ➜ https://bit.ly/NFTWineVIP
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
All right. So when you thinkNFTs, most of the time you're looking
at digital assets that are trading amongstall sorts of industries, mostly the fashion
space. We've seen a little bitof movement into the food and beverage space,
and today's guest is going to bea little different. I think you
guys are gonna like this one becauseit breaks down the wine industry. And
we've talked about food and beverage beforehere on the show and why restaurants are
(00:31):
getting into space. But we'll jumpinto all that. My name is Paul
Barrow. Welcome back to Metaphorse Insider. All right, So before we get
into it today, as always,as you guys know, we cover the
NFT space in depth, we alsolook at digital assets as a whole and
how that affects the gaming industry andmost of the technology. That is really
the underlying effect of how companies,businesses will start to transition to kind of
(00:55):
in this new digital really revolution thatseems to be occurring. To invite in
our guest today, it's mister DavidHarmon, who is the founder of Nftwineclub
dot Com. So hey David,welcome into the show. Thanks Bob,
Thanks for having me on your show. Yeah, so I've seen your background.
I've seen you in the industry forquite a bit. I'm a big
(01:15):
wine connoisseur. I would say Iwould not call myself a collector, but
I would call myself a connoisseur.Love the vineyards, you know, try
to visit every vineyard I can inbest some of the best growing areas around
the world. But you, beingthe founder of wine dot com, obviously
a lot of history in the space. My first question to you is,
(01:38):
first, why go into the NFTspace, the digital collectible space. From
a guy who is probably one ofthe legends in the wine industry, this
seems to be a little bit ofa risk. What was your thought there?
Well, I was always they calledme a little head of the curve
because I like technology, because ofwine dot com, and I was the
you know, when I created winedot com, people laughed at me,
(02:00):
they said it'll never be anything big, and they sort of shoot it away.
So I was one of the firston the internet when nobody else was
doing it. And so when Ifound I was looking into NFTs and I
really didn't know a lot about it. I'm still learning every day, but
(02:20):
I looked at it and I sawthis is a new way of possibly you
know, working with wine and actuallygiving a collector or an individual an opportunity
to possibly make money and also havean NFT, but also have actual wine
that they could taste. So youractual NFT is your label. So that's
(02:42):
what I came up with. Sothe you know, one of the things
that that that does, I thinkthat's a little bit different here is the
aspect of no worries. Did weget you? I'm sorry about that.
So one of the things that's differentwith you is you're doing something that known
in the industry as a figital physicaland a digital asset that is starting to
(03:04):
kind of connect the dots here.When we were doing our research, I
was actually surprised at one. Thiswas a market update from VNX, which
is a wine investment you know,research and study group, and one of
the things that they started to lookat was investment trends. This was in
just this year, in twenty twentythree, and you can take a look
(03:25):
at actually investing in wine as asignificant way, and if you further on
down and look at the assets thatare even included in this, from everything
from gold watches, cars, andwine is right there, rare bottles of
whiskey, bottles, wine, etc. At the top of the list in
(03:45):
terms of investment value. So that'sa great, I think, a great
segue into the kind of personality thatwould come into an NFT, especially if
you're offering a physical and digital assetthat kind of meet in a marriage.
Tell me a little bit about howyou guys do things with this, What
is so unique about your offering tothis kind of figital space that some of
(04:09):
the others are not doing well.Ours is sort of a three part company.
We have our Wine Club, whichis a like an intro for people
that want to get into NFTs they'renot quite sure, but it's also a
club where you get two bottles ofwine a month. The advantage is with
(04:29):
those two bottles of wine, theyare numbered bottles, so each bottle is
an NFT in its own right,So you're going to get for the price
of the club two bottles of winethat you can try and also the NFTs
so you could trade later. Sothe advantage, of course would be even
if you drank your wine and youhad your empty bottle your person that you
(04:56):
sell your NFT too. If youdecide to sell it down the road,
if you keep the bottle, youcould actually ship them an empty bottle and
say, hey, this is thebottle that the NFT represents. Yep,
So you have a physical image onthere, so we feel it's a double
you know, it's it's a winwin for somebody who wants to collect wines.
And of course if you don't drinkthe bottle, um, you know,
(05:18):
I'm looking at another method where Ican keep your bottle. It'd be
worth even more if you can say, after six months, let's say you've
got twelve bottles, you want tosell your twelve NFTs to one person as
a case, and then you knowif you can hold it with us if
you want, and we'll hold yourbottles because I can ship bottles. You
can't personally as an individual ship bottles. But I'm kind of a custody as
(05:43):
a custody service essentially so perfect.I mean, into the hands of this,
it's like a wine board. Youknow, we're going to hold that
to you. And then what's uniqueabout our bottles is you tap on the
bottle. We have the the chipembedded in the label, so we can
tap on it. You actually registeryour bottle, so then it keeps away
from theft or anything like that becausethat bottle is only registered to you,
(06:08):
and so it's a neat, neatlittle thing we've added. So that's where
I like the technology in with thewinemaking. And again it brought me back
into the space where it's like,Okay, the Internet was something new when
I started wine dot com, everybodylaughed, NFTs is something new. Some
people are saying, oh, theywere, you know, they're not that
good. I'm trying to find aunique way to marry the both wine and
(06:31):
technology on the NFTs. Well,I think the key here and we talked
to a lot of companies in thespace that are transitioning from Web two to
Web three, which is what essentiallyyou guys have done. And one of
the things that we always talk about, especially when you get into brands,
and even if you look at liquorbrands. Here's a story right here from
Forecasts and they're talking about, youknow, is a bottle authenticity real?
(06:56):
Because this is something we've seen alreadyin the space of some of these high
end whiskies that have been duped intopeople thinking that they got you know,
a really great vintage there, soNFTs create authenticity and at least some lineage
of being able to trace that backtraceability, especially in the food industry and
the and even the beverage and especiallyin you know, things like what you
(07:16):
guys are doing. Pretty huge,but this was interesting. Counterfeit wine.
I didn't know. This is estimatedto be almost twenty percent of the wine
sold globally. That is huge.So and these are fake wines. These
are fake wines out there. Sothis could really open up the wine industry
as a whole. Do you findother vineyards and you know, wine makers
(07:40):
that are coming to you and saying, hey, maybe David, this is
a solution for clamping down on alot of this fraud. It isn't.
And mainly a lot of the fraudis done by the older wines because are
more valuable, you know, andyou know, we call it dumpster diving
at the restaurant. You know,people will go buy somebody buys an expensive
bottle of wine. They throw itaway and in the dumpster, and somebody
(08:03):
else goes gets it and tries torefill it, buries it in the ground,
and then after that there you know, they think, oh, I've
got this bottle and then I'm goingto try to sell it. And that's
the biggest issue we have. Isis it a real bottle of wine or
is it something that's been refilled youknow what. You know, this is
a way with the chip on itthat we've had on the labels to do
(08:26):
this. I mean, I've workedon some other projects where you know,
I was trying to do the sametype of thing. My personal winery that
I have, I have glow inthe dark labels, so I know if
somebody's copied my label, because morethan likely they didn't put the glow in
the dark on there. So infine restaurants, if you shine a light
on it, it's going to glow. And if it doesn't, it's not
(08:46):
my wine. Somebody's copied printed outmy labels, and now with digital printing,
you can pretty much copy everything.But very few people know that it
glows in the dark. And sothat was something I came with, you
know, with twenty years ago totry to keep some of this fraud because
it is you know, it's mainlyin rare wines. I mean, nobody's
going to go out and duplicate atwo buck chuck, but you know,
it's just you know, you know, unless they've got millions of cases or
(09:09):
selling to somebody, I guess,but it's it's mainly for the rare old
wines and you sort of want toknow, you want to know the history
of that bottle, where with oursyou would know the history who owned it,
who bought it, and it'll showyou, you know, through the
blockchain the owners, so you knowthe life of the bottle as we say.
Right, so this really could gointo a lot of evolution within the
(09:33):
beverage industry of creating some authenticity aroundthese and really kind of create kind of
the next generation of great collectors,collectibles and all that and hopefully get away
from some of the bad stuff that'shappening in the industry. Was I want
to jump over to, you know, the regulations here's this also came a
forecast. China's Alcohol Lobby Group isnow trying to standardize their liquor NFTs,
(09:56):
so further in the article they talkeda little bit about The association said its
standards will cover, but won't belimited to cultural and creative products, liquor
based products, digital collectibles, orthe physical liquor accompanying these assets. Now,
we haven't seen this being a movementyet here in the United States.
How far away do you think weare from a regulatory body that would say,
(10:18):
Okay, we think this is apotential for the industry and we're going
to try to get something going.I'm not sure because I'm still fairly new
with the NFT. You know,my other partners are more in depth with
what's going on with the market onmainly the wine. Behind this NFT,
however, you know we are doing. You know, I think it's going
(10:41):
to be down the road, it'llbe something else. Like I think now,
most NFTs with wine are just winefutures, right, You're purchasing a
wine at a reduced price, andif you wait three years, we'll give
it to you that bottle of wine, jaws, or you can sell that
bottle of wine for the retail pricethree years from now. And so I
(11:03):
don't consider that a true NFT onthat where, but it's it's sort of
going in that method where you know, a lot of wineries have been doing
futures for years. So this isI think the new thing with us.
You know, all right, wetracked the space pretty heavily and one of
the things that we look at is, you know, how tokens are starting
(11:24):
to flow in the market, andyou know, typically we see this happen
in other industries. And a handfulof tokens have started to enter the food
and beverage space. This is enoToken, which is a blockchain wine club,
and they themselves are kind of goingon the aspect of a token based
But back to your point, thesekind of futures styles of approaches versus a
(11:46):
physical and or a digital component thatkind of connects the dots there. Let
me ask you a few things here, and that is mostly about customers.
You know, you get a chanceto work with consumers. They've been buying
your wine for decades. What's beentheir reaction to this? Have they are
they intrigued with it? Do youthink there is a large upside market for
(12:09):
collectors and just general consumers overall?Well, I think we're focusing mainly towards
women because women, I don't thinkknow a lot about the NFTs and they
want to be a part of it. So Bozana, who's our wine expert
there, she she travels the worldregarding wine and NFTs. But you know
(12:31):
that's our main focus because we thinkyou know, it's not just a guy's
thing. And women buy the majorityof the wine. Believe it or not.
People don't believe me, but youknow, the women are the ones
who purchase the wine. We endup with a lot of I mean,
I think that's the best. That'sthe focus we're going on. The We
(12:52):
have a second part of our club, which focus more on the investor,
and that's a that's a five thousanddollars n FT and that's part of the
that's part of the web three.And we've already created a virtual vineyard in
the metaverse and we've in that willhave you know, they've they've that one
(13:15):
you're assigned to in the metaverse,I have thirty six hundred vines, which
copies the vineyard I have in Napa. And so what we did was we
made an exact copy of my vineyardwhere we removed my house and put it
in a corporate office where using AIand everything, you can go see me.
I meet you at the gate.I'll take you to your physical location.
Because each bottle is numbered with thevine, so it's like on the
(13:41):
photo their vine a three. Sothat's you know, I can take your
right to A three your name willbe on it. That's your vine in
the metaverse. And so that thatone is very exclusive. It's sort I
call it sort of the the blackcard of American Express. You'll get more
private dinner stuff like that with meand I travel around, I pour at
(14:03):
the Masters, the US Open allthese events, so you'll get invites to
stuff like that. So that's that'sthe package that I say and blast there.
Yeah, yeah, let's talk aboutthat, because what you've done there
is you've created what we call inthe industry utility, and an NFT utility
is the aspect where the value ofthat NFT goes beyond the market value of
(14:24):
what that NFT is being traded at. Utility meaning, hey, venues,
event access, all these other kindof things that are almost you know,
kind of holy Grail elements. We'reseeing more companies do this. Additionally,
with that, you see a lotof branding elements starting to flow into the
space. This one right here isboard Ape Winco. Of course, if
(14:46):
you know NFTs, you know boardapes, and they've of course started to
use their IP on you know NFTboomer you got I love this one right
here. Crypto block blocked in andthen seven. So I mean, just
some interesting ways to be able tointegrate NFT creativity and branding. Do you
(15:07):
find that? And this is aquestion I have for the industry. I
ask people in the food and beverageindustry this all the time. Do you
think we'll see more of the nativeguys? When I say native if you
just go down the top fifty orone hundred NFT projects and say could they
do a wine and they go outto a company like you private label it
come with a strategy, but theyhave an ip A customer base, all
(15:30):
that kind of stuff, do youthink they'll be successful in the industry or
do you think it's going to bethe winemakers themselves doing this? Now?
I think the companies will be successful. And that's what we're' that's where we're
getting calls already. I mean,it's we've got companies that say, hey,
we've got half a million people onour database and we want to do
(15:50):
our own NFT, We want todo our own club and can you fulfill
that for us? Can you showus how to do it? And so
that's what I that's that's the partwhere I'm brought in, and that's you
know, I'm used to you know, I've done the six thousand packages a
day I used I used to ownthe largest shipping company in NAPA, so
it was just you know, that'sthat's to me. The the big picture
(16:15):
is getting companies to be able todo this white label program and you know,
do it for their own base,and then we'll show them how to
make an NFT out of it,so then they have the NFT aspect for
them, whether it's a restaurant,a hotel, an airline. You know,
instead of them going out and teamingup with another you know, wine
(16:36):
club, we're saying, start yourown you know, you don't have it,
doesn't have to be us, youcan be We'll supply you with the
line, we'll do you know,all the labels, everything you need to
do, all you know to getyou set up. I think it's going
to be interesting with the branding aspectof this, because what we're seeing right
now is a lot of projects andeverything from you know, dows to full
(17:00):
on companies worldwide. Because you know, wine is somewhat of a you know,
it's a global language. People understandit anywhere in the planet, and
then they can completely understand its valueand then when you start applying some technology
to it and or unique value includingutility, Now you have something that's kind
of interesting because I think this isreally the future of where not only branding
(17:23):
will go, but where community willgo. And loyalty. That's a big
deal for vineyards, as you know, loyalty coming back every every winemaking season,
getting a chance to get a newwinemaker's vintage that that particular period,
being able to understand the lineage ofwhat's happening with that grape. I think
there's a lot of opportunity there thatreally is going to be interesting. This
(17:45):
was interesting to me, and thisis this whole idea around scannability and authenticity.
This was a company called Scantruss,so they're using a QR code to
protect businesses. Now you're going tobe able to do things with in the
labels of different kinds of products,including beverages, just like what you saw
there. I think that might havebeen whistle Pig, I'm not sure,
(18:07):
or no, that was Cognac,but I'm a big whistle Pig fan.
So if you like, if youlike Rivee whiskey whistle Pig in Vermont,
one of the best ones out thereanyway, The point being is that you
could apply some things into that withthis new technology based on what you're seeing.
You're are you in Napa? Whereare you located? Yeah, I'm
based in Napa. That's what thevineyard is. Yeah, I'm on the
(18:32):
road right now, but yeah,I'm in Napa. Hundreds hundreds and hundreds
of vineyards there in Napa Valle,all up and down the valley there.
What is the rest of the industrydoing in this area? Are you finding
any other pioneers and innovators starting totake that step? Not the same way
we're doing it. Like I said, most of the wineries getting on the
(18:53):
bandwagon. We're sort of doing futuresis what they're doing. They're not,
right, okay, doing the wholeblockchain and everything else. So but I
think once you know, I've thearticle came out a couple of weeks ago
about me, and since then itwas in a wine wine newsletter, and
since then we've been getting tons ofcalls from winery saying, how can we
(19:15):
do this? You know, isthis something we can just do with our
label? And I said, yes, you can do it, do it
with your client base. You know. The whole thing. We can you
know, we'll help you, youknow, set this whole thing up.
I love it. Uh. Speakingof metaverse, I was intrigued with the
fact that you guys have already advancedinto Web three with you know, creating
a metaverse, you know, facility. There's a couple of things I like
(19:38):
this one right here, it's calledSecond Winery. They're going into kind of
these three D almost virtual environments,you know. So it's a little different
because there's a couple you can lookat. I'm showing some on screen.
This is one right here, youknow, which is a little different approach.
This is level a vose Veno,which is more of a a traditional
(20:00):
gaming style integration, which would probablyattract a certain level of demographics. You
know, spatial is being used hereas one of the leaders in Web three.
But I also look back at whatSecond Winery is doing, and this
is more I mean, I couldthink about that if I was in the
Rombauer vineyard and I was looking outover that valley. If you guys know
(20:22):
Napa Valley, that is one ofthe most spectacular views off that you know,
that little porch there at the Yeah, it's unbelievable. And I just
was like, what if that wasin the metaverse? Well, I mean
that would be really cool if youcould connect Rombauer or something like that into
that. So very cool stuff.With what you guys are doing. What
do you think about the metaverse?Do you think it's just too early right
(20:45):
now or do you think more andmore companies like yourself are going to find
their way in there to start creatingcommunity. Well, some people think it's
already passed, it's prime. Idon't believe that. I think it's too
early. That's what, like Isaid, that's what they said to me
about wine dot com. You know, hey, this isn't going to work.
And that just forced me even harderto do something. And that's probably
(21:07):
why I'm back into this again.But the Web three, what we've done,
which is kind of unique, isinstead of, like I said,
instead of having my house there,we put in an office, all clear
glass office and you will I havebreakout rooms. So if you want to
learn about vineyards, you come intothe breakout room about the vineyards. If
you want to learn about appellations,if you want to you know, just
(21:30):
different stuff. Plus we have winesales, we have a bar there,
we actually have a glass that's goingI can pour the wine in order this
glass and it'll actually fill up.So it's there's some unique stuff we're doing
in the web. Three we haven'tlaunched yet. I mean, it's still
fine tuning it, but you know, and then there's advertising opportunities for people,
(21:52):
you know, for whatever, youknow, whether it's wine related or
you know, all kinds of stuff. I mean, it's just it really
opens up a whole new world forpeople to market and promote. And then
you know, like I said,I'll meet you at the gate and using
AI, of course I don't haveto be there the whole time, so
I can have a lot of thesequestions answered through the AI through you know,
(22:14):
and they did make a avatar ofme, so it's you know,
the whole thing is you know,that experience you're going to have, and
that's you know, that's the nextstep. So we're we're finalizing it.
I mean, I've seen the vineyardbecause what I had to do was go
out and of course do the latlong of every single vine all thirty six
hundred because that's what's etched on yourbottle when you I have a QR code
(22:37):
on the bottle that you scan,it'll take you right to Google Earth to
the vineyard. So that's something wasunique on the on the label which is
your NFT you know, yeah,but it's yeah, yeah, very unique
I think in this whole physical digitalcomponent because I think that will be for
food service, for hospitality day,for beverage industry. Those are going to
(23:02):
be some of the key things Ithink that we'll really connect the dots for
a lot of consumers and brands alike. So, David, it has been
great having you on the show today. Thank you so much. We're going
to continue to explore companies like yourselfas they dive into this next generation of
not only technology, but how tocreate some new value for brands and products.
So thanks for stopping in today.We appreciate it. Thank you,
(23:23):
Paul, And if you're out andnap again, please stop in say hello.
I will do for sure. Allright, you guys are tuned in
here on maybe the podcast side ofthings, make sure and jump over here
to the YouTube channel because this iswhere you're gonna catch all this additional beautiful
view of these great vineyards we justgot through talking about. But best of
all, you can join our ownDiamond Circle. Now, the Diamond Circle
(23:44):
is part of our own member group, as you guys know, where we
break down additional content on blockchain,NFTs, metaverse gaming, all of the
things that are happening in this nextgeneration. Make sure and check it out.
We'll leave a link down below.It's very easy to find and very
easy to get in too, becauseit's free. Man, super simple,
all right, If you guys wantto catch me, it's very simple.
You can go out there on theinterwebs near Twitter and just hit at Paul
(24:08):
Baron. We'll catch you next timeright here on Metaverse Insider
All right. So when you thinkNFTs, most of the time you're looking
at digital assets that are trading amongstall sorts of industries, mostly the fashion
space. We've seen a little bitof movement into the food and beverage space,
and today's guest is going to bea little different. I think you
guys are gonna like this one becauseit breaks down the wine industry. And
we've talked about food and beverage beforehere on the show and why restaurants are
(00:31):
getting into space. But we'll jumpinto all that. My name is Paul
Barrow. Welcome back to Metaphorse Insider. All right, So before we get
into it today, as always,as you guys know, we cover the
NFT space in depth, we alsolook at digital assets as a whole and
how that affects the gaming industry andmost of the technology. That is really
the underlying effect of how companies,businesses will start to transition to kind of
(00:55):
in this new digital really revolution thatseems to be occurring. To invite in
our guest today, it's mister DavidHarmon, who is the founder of Nftwineclub
dot Com. So hey David,welcome into the show. Thanks Bob,
Thanks for having me on your show. Yeah, so I've seen your background.
I've seen you in the industry forquite a bit. I'm a big
(01:15):
wine connoisseur. I would say Iwould not call myself a collector, but
I would call myself a connoisseur.Love the vineyards, you know, try
to visit every vineyard I can inbest some of the best growing areas around
the world. But you, beingthe founder of wine dot com, obviously
a lot of history in the space. My first question to you is,
(01:38):
first, why go into the NFTspace, the digital collectible space. From
a guy who is probably one ofthe legends in the wine industry, this
seems to be a little bit ofa risk. What was your thought there?
Well, I was always they calledme a little head of the curve
because I like technology, because ofwine dot com, and I was the
you know, when I created winedot com, people laughed at me,
(02:00):
they said it'll never be anything big, and they sort of shoot it away.
So I was one of the firston the internet when nobody else was
doing it. And so when Ifound I was looking into NFTs and I
really didn't know a lot about it. I'm still learning every day, but
(02:20):
I looked at it and I sawthis is a new way of possibly you
know, working with wine and actuallygiving a collector or an individual an opportunity
to possibly make money and also havean NFT, but also have actual wine
that they could taste. So youractual NFT is your label. So that's
(02:42):
what I came up with. Sothe you know, one of the things
that that that does, I thinkthat's a little bit different here is the
aspect of no worries. Did weget you? I'm sorry about that.
So one of the things that's differentwith you is you're doing something that known
in the industry as a figital physicaland a digital asset that is starting to
(03:04):
kind of connect the dots here.When we were doing our research, I
was actually surprised at one. Thiswas a market update from VNX, which
is a wine investment you know,research and study group, and one of
the things that they started to lookat was investment trends. This was in
just this year, in twenty twentythree, and you can take a look
(03:25):
at actually investing in wine as asignificant way, and if you further on
down and look at the assets thatare even included in this, from everything
from gold watches, cars, andwine is right there, rare bottles of
whiskey, bottles, wine, etc. At the top of the list in
(03:45):
terms of investment value. So that'sa great, I think, a great
segue into the kind of personality thatwould come into an NFT, especially if
you're offering a physical and digital assetthat kind of meet in a marriage.
Tell me a little bit about howyou guys do things with this, What
is so unique about your offering tothis kind of figital space that some of
(04:09):
the others are not doing well.Ours is sort of a three part company.
We have our Wine Club, whichis a like an intro for people
that want to get into NFTs they'renot quite sure, but it's also a
club where you get two bottles ofwine a month. The advantage is with
(04:29):
those two bottles of wine, theyare numbered bottles, so each bottle is
an NFT in its own right,So you're going to get for the price
of the club two bottles of winethat you can try and also the NFTs
so you could trade later. Sothe advantage, of course would be even
if you drank your wine and youhad your empty bottle your person that you
(04:56):
sell your NFT too. If youdecide to sell it down the road,
if you keep the bottle, youcould actually ship them an empty bottle and
say, hey, this is thebottle that the NFT represents. Yep,
So you have a physical image onthere, so we feel it's a double
you know, it's it's a winwin for somebody who wants to collect wines.
And of course if you don't drinkthe bottle, um, you know,
(05:18):
I'm looking at another method where Ican keep your bottle. It'd be
worth even more if you can say, after six months, let's say you've
got twelve bottles, you want tosell your twelve NFTs to one person as
a case, and then you knowif you can hold it with us if
you want, and we'll hold yourbottles because I can ship bottles. You
can't personally as an individual ship bottles. But I'm kind of a custody as
(05:43):
a custody service essentially so perfect.I mean, into the hands of this,
it's like a wine board. Youknow, we're going to hold that
to you. And then what's uniqueabout our bottles is you tap on the
bottle. We have the the chipembedded in the label, so we can
tap on it. You actually registeryour bottle, so then it keeps away
from theft or anything like that becausethat bottle is only registered to you,
(06:08):
and so it's a neat, neatlittle thing we've added. So that's where
I like the technology in with thewinemaking. And again it brought me back
into the space where it's like,Okay, the Internet was something new when
I started wine dot com, everybodylaughed, NFTs is something new. Some
people are saying, oh, theywere, you know, they're not that
good. I'm trying to find aunique way to marry the both wine and
(06:31):
technology on the NFTs. Well,I think the key here and we talked
to a lot of companies in thespace that are transitioning from Web two to
Web three, which is what essentiallyyou guys have done. And one of
the things that we always talk about, especially when you get into brands,
and even if you look at liquorbrands. Here's a story right here from
Forecasts and they're talking about, youknow, is a bottle authenticity real?
(06:56):
Because this is something we've seen alreadyin the space of some of these high
end whiskies that have been duped intopeople thinking that they got you know,
a really great vintage there, soNFTs create authenticity and at least some lineage
of being able to trace that backtraceability, especially in the food industry and
the and even the beverage and especiallyin you know, things like what you
(07:16):
guys are doing. Pretty huge,but this was interesting. Counterfeit wine.
I didn't know. This is estimatedto be almost twenty percent of the wine
sold globally. That is huge.So and these are fake wines. These
are fake wines out there. Sothis could really open up the wine industry
as a whole. Do you findother vineyards and you know, wine makers
(07:40):
that are coming to you and saying, hey, maybe David, this is
a solution for clamping down on alot of this fraud. It isn't.
And mainly a lot of the fraudis done by the older wines because are
more valuable, you know, andyou know, we call it dumpster diving
at the restaurant. You know,people will go buy somebody buys an expensive
bottle of wine. They throw itaway and in the dumpster, and somebody
(08:03):
else goes gets it and tries torefill it, buries it in the ground,
and then after that there you know, they think, oh, I've
got this bottle and then I'm goingto try to sell it. And that's
the biggest issue we have. Isis it a real bottle of wine or
is it something that's been refilled youknow what. You know, this is
a way with the chip on itthat we've had on the labels to do
(08:26):
this. I mean, I've workedon some other projects where you know,
I was trying to do the sametype of thing. My personal winery that
I have, I have glow inthe dark labels, so I know if
somebody's copied my label, because morethan likely they didn't put the glow in
the dark on there. So infine restaurants, if you shine a light
on it, it's going to glow. And if it doesn't, it's not
(08:46):
my wine. Somebody's copied printed outmy labels, and now with digital printing,
you can pretty much copy everything.But very few people know that it
glows in the dark. And sothat was something I came with, you
know, with twenty years ago totry to keep some of this fraud because
it is you know, it's mainlyin rare wines. I mean, nobody's
going to go out and duplicate atwo buck chuck, but you know,
it's just you know, you know, unless they've got millions of cases or
(09:09):
selling to somebody, I guess,but it's it's mainly for the rare old
wines and you sort of want toknow, you want to know the history
of that bottle, where with oursyou would know the history who owned it,
who bought it, and it'll showyou, you know, through the
blockchain the owners, so you knowthe life of the bottle as we say.
Right, so this really could gointo a lot of evolution within the
(09:33):
beverage industry of creating some authenticity aroundthese and really kind of create kind of
the next generation of great collectors,collectibles and all that and hopefully get away
from some of the bad stuff that'shappening in the industry. Was I want
to jump over to, you know, the regulations here's this also came a
forecast. China's Alcohol Lobby Group isnow trying to standardize their liquor NFTs,
(09:56):
so further in the article they talkeda little bit about The association said its
standards will cover, but won't belimited to cultural and creative products, liquor
based products, digital collectibles, orthe physical liquor accompanying these assets. Now,
we haven't seen this being a movementyet here in the United States.
How far away do you think weare from a regulatory body that would say,
(10:18):
Okay, we think this is apotential for the industry and we're going
to try to get something going.I'm not sure because I'm still fairly new
with the NFT. You know,my other partners are more in depth with
what's going on with the market onmainly the wine. Behind this NFT,
however, you know we are doing. You know, I think it's going
(10:41):
to be down the road, it'llbe something else. Like I think now,
most NFTs with wine are just winefutures, right, You're purchasing a
wine at a reduced price, andif you wait three years, we'll give
it to you that bottle of wine, jaws, or you can sell that
bottle of wine for the retail pricethree years from now. And so I
(11:03):
don't consider that a true NFT onthat where, but it's it's sort of
going in that method where you know, a lot of wineries have been doing
futures for years. So this isI think the new thing with us.
You know, all right, wetracked the space pretty heavily and one of
the things that we look at is, you know, how tokens are starting
(11:24):
to flow in the market, andyou know, typically we see this happen
in other industries. And a handfulof tokens have started to enter the food
and beverage space. This is enoToken, which is a blockchain wine club,
and they themselves are kind of goingon the aspect of a token based
But back to your point, thesekind of futures styles of approaches versus a
(11:46):
physical and or a digital component thatkind of connects the dots there. Let
me ask you a few things here, and that is mostly about customers.
You know, you get a chanceto work with consumers. They've been buying
your wine for decades. What's beentheir reaction to this? Have they are
they intrigued with it? Do youthink there is a large upside market for
(12:09):
collectors and just general consumers overall?Well, I think we're focusing mainly towards
women because women, I don't thinkknow a lot about the NFTs and they
want to be a part of it. So Bozana, who's our wine expert
there, she she travels the worldregarding wine and NFTs. But you know
(12:31):
that's our main focus because we thinkyou know, it's not just a guy's
thing. And women buy the majorityof the wine. Believe it or not.
People don't believe me, but youknow, the women are the ones
who purchase the wine. We endup with a lot of I mean,
I think that's the best. That'sthe focus we're going on. The We
(12:52):
have a second part of our club, which focus more on the investor,
and that's a that's a five thousanddollars n FT and that's part of the
that's part of the web three.And we've already created a virtual vineyard in
the metaverse and we've in that willhave you know, they've they've that one
(13:15):
you're assigned to in the metaverse,I have thirty six hundred vines, which
copies the vineyard I have in Napa. And so what we did was we
made an exact copy of my vineyardwhere we removed my house and put it
in a corporate office where using AIand everything, you can go see me.
I meet you at the gate.I'll take you to your physical location.
Because each bottle is numbered with thevine, so it's like on the
(13:41):
photo their vine a three. Sothat's you know, I can take your
right to A three your name willbe on it. That's your vine in
the metaverse. And so that thatone is very exclusive. It's sort I
call it sort of the the blackcard of American Express. You'll get more
private dinner stuff like that with meand I travel around, I pour at
(14:03):
the Masters, the US Open allthese events, so you'll get invites to
stuff like that. So that's that'sthe package that I say and blast there.
Yeah, yeah, let's talk aboutthat, because what you've done there
is you've created what we call inthe industry utility, and an NFT utility
is the aspect where the value ofthat NFT goes beyond the market value of
(14:24):
what that NFT is being traded at. Utility meaning, hey, venues,
event access, all these other kindof things that are almost you know,
kind of holy Grail elements. We'reseeing more companies do this. Additionally,
with that, you see a lotof branding elements starting to flow into the
space. This one right here isboard Ape Winco. Of course, if
(14:46):
you know NFTs, you know boardapes, and they've of course started to
use their IP on you know NFTboomer you got I love this one right
here. Crypto block blocked in andthen seven. So I mean, just
some interesting ways to be able tointegrate NFT creativity and branding. Do you
(15:07):
find that? And this is aquestion I have for the industry. I
ask people in the food and beverageindustry this all the time. Do you
think we'll see more of the nativeguys? When I say native if you
just go down the top fifty orone hundred NFT projects and say could they
do a wine and they go outto a company like you private label it
come with a strategy, but theyhave an ip A customer base, all
(15:30):
that kind of stuff, do youthink they'll be successful in the industry or
do you think it's going to bethe winemakers themselves doing this? Now?
I think the companies will be successful. And that's what we're' that's where we're
getting calls already. I mean,it's we've got companies that say, hey,
we've got half a million people onour database and we want to do
(15:50):
our own NFT, We want todo our own club and can you fulfill
that for us? Can you showus how to do it? And so
that's what I that's that's the partwhere I'm brought in, and that's you
know, I'm used to you know, I've done the six thousand packages a
day I used I used to ownthe largest shipping company in NAPA, so
it was just you know, that'sthat's to me. The the big picture
(16:15):
is getting companies to be able todo this white label program and you know,
do it for their own base,and then we'll show them how to
make an NFT out of it,so then they have the NFT aspect for
them, whether it's a restaurant,a hotel, an airline. You know,
instead of them going out and teamingup with another you know, wine
(16:36):
club, we're saying, start yourown you know, you don't have it,
doesn't have to be us, youcan be We'll supply you with the
line, we'll do you know,all the labels, everything you need to
do, all you know to getyou set up. I think it's going
to be interesting with the branding aspectof this, because what we're seeing right
now is a lot of projects andeverything from you know, dows to full
(17:00):
on companies worldwide. Because you know, wine is somewhat of a you know,
it's a global language. People understandit anywhere in the planet, and
then they can completely understand its valueand then when you start applying some technology
to it and or unique value includingutility, Now you have something that's kind
of interesting because I think this isreally the future of where not only branding
(17:23):
will go, but where community willgo. And loyalty. That's a big
deal for vineyards, as you know, loyalty coming back every every winemaking season,
getting a chance to get a newwinemaker's vintage that that particular period,
being able to understand the lineage ofwhat's happening with that grape. I think
there's a lot of opportunity there thatreally is going to be interesting. This
(17:45):
was interesting to me, and thisis this whole idea around scannability and authenticity.
This was a company called Scantruss,so they're using a QR code to
protect businesses. Now you're going tobe able to do things with in the
labels of different kinds of products,including beverages, just like what you saw
there. I think that might havebeen whistle Pig, I'm not sure,
(18:07):
or no, that was Cognac,but I'm a big whistle Pig fan.
So if you like, if youlike Rivee whiskey whistle Pig in Vermont,
one of the best ones out thereanyway, The point being is that you
could apply some things into that withthis new technology based on what you're seeing.
You're are you in Napa? Whereare you located? Yeah, I'm
based in Napa. That's what thevineyard is. Yeah, I'm on the
(18:32):
road right now, but yeah,I'm in Napa. Hundreds hundreds and hundreds
of vineyards there in Napa Valle,all up and down the valley there.
What is the rest of the industrydoing in this area? Are you finding
any other pioneers and innovators starting totake that step? Not the same way
we're doing it. Like I said, most of the wineries getting on the
(18:53):
bandwagon. We're sort of doing futuresis what they're doing. They're not,
right, okay, doing the wholeblockchain and everything else. So but I
think once you know, I've thearticle came out a couple of weeks ago
about me, and since then itwas in a wine wine newsletter, and
since then we've been getting tons ofcalls from winery saying, how can we
(19:15):
do this? You know, isthis something we can just do with our
label? And I said, yes, you can do it, do it
with your client base. You know. The whole thing. We can you
know, we'll help you, youknow, set this whole thing up.
I love it. Uh. Speakingof metaverse, I was intrigued with the
fact that you guys have already advancedinto Web three with you know, creating
a metaverse, you know, facility. There's a couple of things I like
(19:38):
this one right here, it's calledSecond Winery. They're going into kind of
these three D almost virtual environments,you know. So it's a little different
because there's a couple you can lookat. I'm showing some on screen.
This is one right here, youknow, which is a little different approach.
This is level a vose Veno,which is more of a a traditional
(20:00):
gaming style integration, which would probablyattract a certain level of demographics. You
know, spatial is being used hereas one of the leaders in Web three.
But I also look back at whatSecond Winery is doing, and this
is more I mean, I couldthink about that if I was in the
Rombauer vineyard and I was looking outover that valley. If you guys know
(20:22):
Napa Valley, that is one ofthe most spectacular views off that you know,
that little porch there at the Yeah, it's unbelievable. And I just
was like, what if that wasin the metaverse? Well, I mean
that would be really cool if youcould connect Rombauer or something like that into
that. So very cool stuff.With what you guys are doing. What
do you think about the metaverse?Do you think it's just too early right
(20:45):
now or do you think more andmore companies like yourself are going to find
their way in there to start creatingcommunity. Well, some people think it's
already passed, it's prime. Idon't believe that. I think it's too
early. That's what, like Isaid, that's what they said to me
about wine dot com. You know, hey, this isn't going to work.
And that just forced me even harderto do something. And that's probably
(21:07):
why I'm back into this again.But the Web three, what we've done,
which is kind of unique, isinstead of, like I said,
instead of having my house there,we put in an office, all clear
glass office and you will I havebreakout rooms. So if you want to
learn about vineyards, you come intothe breakout room about the vineyards. If
you want to learn about appellations,if you want to you know, just
(21:30):
different stuff. Plus we have winesales, we have a bar there,
we actually have a glass that's goingI can pour the wine in order this
glass and it'll actually fill up.So it's there's some unique stuff we're doing
in the web. Three we haven'tlaunched yet. I mean, it's still
fine tuning it, but you know, and then there's advertising opportunities for people,
(21:52):
you know, for whatever, youknow, whether it's wine related or
you know, all kinds of stuff. I mean, it's just it really
opens up a whole new world forpeople to market and promote. And then
you know, like I said,I'll meet you at the gate and using
AI, of course I don't haveto be there the whole time, so
I can have a lot of thesequestions answered through the AI through you know,
(22:14):
and they did make a avatar ofme, so it's you know,
the whole thing is you know,that experience you're going to have, and
that's you know, that's the nextstep. So we're we're finalizing it.
I mean, I've seen the vineyardbecause what I had to do was go
out and of course do the latlong of every single vine all thirty six
hundred because that's what's etched on yourbottle when you I have a QR code
(22:37):
on the bottle that you scan,it'll take you right to Google Earth to
the vineyard. So that's something wasunique on the on the label which is
your NFT you know, yeah,but it's yeah, yeah, very unique
I think in this whole physical digitalcomponent because I think that will be for
food service, for hospitality day,for beverage industry. Those are going to
(23:02):
be some of the key things Ithink that we'll really connect the dots for
a lot of consumers and brands alike. So, David, it has been
great having you on the show today. Thank you so much. We're going
to continue to explore companies like yourselfas they dive into this next generation of
not only technology, but how tocreate some new value for brands and products.
So thanks for stopping in today.We appreciate it. Thank you,
(23:23):
Paul, And if you're out andnap again, please stop in say hello.
I will do for sure. Allright, you guys are tuned in
here on maybe the podcast side ofthings, make sure and jump over here
to the YouTube channel because this iswhere you're gonna catch all this additional beautiful
view of these great vineyards we justgot through talking about. But best of
all, you can join our ownDiamond Circle. Now, the Diamond Circle
(23:44):
is part of our own member group, as you guys know, where we
break down additional content on blockchain,NFTs, metaverse gaming, all of the
things that are happening in this nextgeneration. Make sure and check it out.
We'll leave a link down below.It's very easy to find and very
easy to get in too, becauseit's free. Man, super simple,
all right, If you guys wantto catch me, it's very simple.
You can go out there on theinterwebs near Twitter and just hit at Paul
(24:08):
Baron. We'll catch you next timeright here on Metaverse Insider
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