South Africa’s leading fine art auctioneers Strauss and Co. have announced a partnership with South Africa’s five leading wine producers to offer fine wine NFTs.
The five lots will be on display from April 11 to April 18, with bidding taking place from April 18 to April 25.
This will be the first time fine wine NFTs are being offered by African companies. The digital collections will include past, present and future vintages by Klein Constantia Vin de Constance, Kanonkop Paul Sauer, Meerlust Rubicon, Mullineux Olerasay and Vilafonté Series C.
The digital contracts, that will be recorded on the polygon blockchain, will include all provenance, pricing, transaction, sensory, and age information, allowing the wines to be authenticated.
Each NFT holds between 20-50 vintages, with collections from 66 to 288 bottles. Each bottle within the NFT will also be minted as an NFT to allow trading and consumption of individual bottles.
The auction is a joint venture between fine wine merchant Wine Cellar, sommelier Higgo Jacobs and auction house, Strauss & Co.
“We are beyond excited to be launching Africa’s first NFT auction online which we believe can play an important part in generating awareness for South African fine wine internationally”, said Roland Peens, Strauss & Co. Fine Wine Specialist.
“Strauss & Co. Fine Wine NFTs, however, offer a unique iconic South African industry collective of verticals direct from the producers, providing unprecedented ownership of vintage wines and futures to the collector and investor.”
The NFTs will be curated and transancted by Web3 developer Fanfire. Director Gert-Jan van Rooyen will be responsible for the security, payment and technical parameters of the NFT and blockchain transaction.
Strauss and Co. accepts payment in card, cash and EFT and optionally in cryptocurrency. Fanfire will facilitate payments in Bitcoin and Ether.
The NFTs can also be traded on any platform increasing its reach exponentially. The NFTs include perfect cellaring of the wine until maturity while the contracts will be held in custodial wallets or cold wallets such as Venox Vault.
A percentage of NFT proceeds, specifically 1.5% of the selling price of the NFTs will be donated to Sp(i)eel, along with other charities.
Previously global fine wine merchant Bordeaux partnered with Tangible to offer wine NFTs backed by tangible assets.
