Digital fine wine startup introduces first real asset metaverse for connoisseurs

Dedicated to offering users an enriching wine curation experience, the London-based company used the latest technology to develop a virtual cellar. Owners can now exhibit their bottles, deepen their knowledge, and virtually guide their guests through their fine wine collection.

How it all began

Crurated Founder and CEO Alfonso de Gaetano shared that the name was inspired by merging the esteemed “Cru” appellation for superior wine and “Curation,” carefully selecting and organizing content to create an enjoyable experience for others.

“It was a very long journey,” Gaetano told IE in an interview. “When I started my first job as a consultant, I began going out and meeting top clients, and I started noticing that there were a lot of discussions about wines, maybe because in Italy it’s a huge part of our culture.”

Recognizing the added value wine conversations brought to his business talks, Gaetano, a former Google executive with over a decade of experience, shares that delving into the world of wine strengthened his professional relationships and sparked his curiosity for further exploration.

“This became something I wanted to learn more about for personal reasons, it was interesting to go in detail, as well as describe and share wines thay many people don’t know about and find very interesting as an experience,” says the CEO.

However, even during his time at Google, he found it nearly impossible to access rare wines for his collection, often resorting to auctions where the quality fell short more often than not.

“That frustration pushed me to the idea of Crurated, in order to possibly democratize access to great wine, and distribute it to more people,” states Gaetano. “And for the guarantee of provenance by using blockchain, I wanted to make sure that everything we do is the ideal solution for collectors, in terms of knowing exactly where the bottle comes from even if it’s an old vintage.”

How it works

Each bottle owned by Crurated community members is certified with an NFT, allowing for easy tracking of its journey from the vineyard to the collector, through blockchain-recorded data. The NFTs stay fully redeemable, allowing users to exchange their virtual wine for the actual bottle at any time.

“For example, when the bottles come to our warehouse, the tokens move from the producer’s cellar to our own warehouse, and when the bottle is shipped to the client the token is again moving,” adds Gaetano. “We are also launching a so-called burn of the NFT so that when the client finishes a bottle, one can see that the process is closed.”

“On the dashboard you can see everything that a person buys, you can see what’s new this week. And then you go on auctions and you can see everything that is available. So few things are available on auction, and other things are available at a fixed price,” he continues.

In addition, users can also buy fractions of a barrel. “For example you buy 27 liters, and you submit your offer,” says the founder.

Crurated’s metaverse is crafted with Unreal Engine 5, celebrated for its ultra-realistic, immersive landscapes in games like Fortnite, in collaboration with Italian Architect Giovanni Francesco Frascino, an expert in real-world spatial design.

By using a VR headset owners can also visit a portal on the Crurated website and explore their exclusive wine cellar in the metaverse, with Apple users set to join by the end of 2024 through Vision Pro. “In your own virtual cellar, you can see in real-time where the bottle is, whether it’s delivered or still with the producer, depending on whether it has been bottled or not,” says Gaetano.

Owners also have the option to invite guests to join them in multiplayer mode, where they can observe the sommelier’s activities, interact with the Curated AI, and gain insights into the bottles. Touching the bottles triggers their history from the blockchain, unveiling an NFT elaborating on the wine’s journey from vineyard to bottle.

“The great thing is that you can showcase all the bottles, and each time you touch it, you can see it is connected to the same NFT you have seen before,” explains Gaetano. “It tells you the year of production and when it left our warehouse, and then you can actually see it as we create a 3D model of every bottle.”

When new bottles are bought, owners are treated to a virtual unboxing experience rather than receiving a receipt by email, with the possibility to choose where to display them, whether in the dedicated cellar gallery or kept on an “Infinite Wall,” the company’s virtual interpretation of a traditional wine cave.

“It’s like adding an element of reality in the virtual world, because having a cellar with a lot of bottles without a sense of reality, I don’t believe is a great way of utilizing the metaverse,” says the CEO. “But if you are in the virtual space and you can see all the bottles that you bought and every bottle is backed by the blockchain and an NFT, I think the experience for the client is much better.”

What’s next?

Openly discussing their ongoing collaboration with more than 100 top wine producers from Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, Gaetano hints at even grander plans for expansion. “We are already looking at Portugal, we are starting to explore sparkling wines in England, so we are already expanding on more bases,” he says. “The plan is to cover the best wines in the world.”

Gaetano highlights the platform’s aim to appeal to the younger population and adds that anyone can join through one of its four tiers of membership. “Around 70 percent of our clients are below 45 because we are really attracting the next generation of collectors by making it very simple for them to buy wines by just being able to click and buy specific bottles,” the CEO says.

“We sell great producers but our range starts from EUR 30 [USD 32] and it can go up to tens of thousands of euros,” Gaetanos continues. “But even the EUR 30 bottles are special, great value for money, top producers, maybe at the entry level but still the quality is fantastic in general.”

With over USD 25 million already invested in the platform and boasting over 60 employees, the startup shows no signs of slowing down. Plans for the next phase of the metaverse are already underway. Their current aim is to add fresh features, expand existing ones, and discover innovative ways to enhance the enjoyment of fine wine.

“We are the only platform out there that can sell the product in different ways, depending on the rarity of the product, whether at fixed price, or at private or open auctions, depending on the rarity of the things we sell,” says Gaetano. “We want to give people the chance to access things even if they are rare.”

“We want to nurture the passion of collectors, support them in a way that hasn’t been done before – all our technological developments point in that direction,” he concludes. “Our metaverse is the final step in giving collectors an immersive, engaging experience, an alternative to a list of wines on a spreadsheet.”