The release of Penfolds luxury 2018 vintage Superblend bottlings form the first NFT wine auction hosted on BlockBar.com, with a starting bid of $25,000.
Penfolds has partnered with BlockBar, a direct-to-consumer non fungible token (or NFT) marketplace for luxury drinks, to release two wine NFTs.
The NFTs function as digital receipts that confirm and authenticate the buyer’s ownership of two wines: a 2018 Superblend 802.A Cabernet Shiraz, and a 2018 802.B Cabernet Shiraz. Both bottlings are six litre ‘Imperial’ formats that are usually reserved for the Penfolds Museum, and not available for general retail purchase.
The auction began at 10AM EST on Monday April 11, and will continue through to 10am EST Wednesday April 13. Bids can be made either in Fiat currency, or Ethereum (ETH) cryptocurrency.
The auction follows previous collaborations between Penfolds and BlockBar, as Kristy Keyte, Penfolds Chief Marketing Officer explains.
“The release of these special Superblend NFTs follows two highly successful Penfolds x BlockBar NFT Drops.”
“The response to date has been overwhelmingly positive. Penfolds first NFT, linked to a barrel of 2021 Magill Cellar 3, sold in under 12 seconds for US$130,000,” Keyte explained.
“Our second NFT release, linked to 300 bottles of 2018 Magill Cellar 3 sold out in under 10 hours. We look forward to seeing the response to our Superblend release.”
If the winning bidder has previously purchased one of these earlier NFTs as an original owner, they will also receive a complimentary Penfolds decanter.
Dov Falic, CEO and Co-Founder of BlockBar, expressed his delight at working with Penfolds for the auction.
“We’re excited to partner with Penfolds once again to host BlockBar’s first wine NFT auction with an extremely rare offering for our loyal community,” Falic said.
As part of the offer, the NFT buyer will receive a complimentary 750ml bottle of each wine to taste in a private virtual session alongside Penfolds Chief Winemaker Peter Gago.
The wines are described as ‘essentially siblings raised different environments’, and contain ‘significant parcels of fruit from the Barossa Valley, McLaren Value and Coonawarra.’
The 802.A wine consists of 68 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon and 32 per cent Shiraz, with the constituent wines aged individually in American oak hogshead casks for 22 months, prior to blending.
The 802.B blend has a more even split, with Cabernet Sauvignon making up 55 per cent, and Shiraz the remaining 45 percent. The component wines were blended after vintage, and matured in French oak hogshead casks for 19 months. Penfolds believes this wine is well suited to cellar aging.
The winning bidder will secure a record of authenticity held on the blockchain as a digital certificate of ownership. They are then able to ‘redeem’ the physical products (the wine bottles themselves) or can choose to trade the NFTs through BlockBar’s marketplace. A ‘virtual bar’, and gifting options, are also available.