This unique vertical collection NFT provides ownership of vintage wines and future releases, to the collector and investor.

Vilafonté is a high-profile collaboration between the well-known American winemaking team of Zelma Long and Phil Freese and South Africa's Mike Ratcliffe. On the Paarl side of the Simonsberg mountain, it was founded in 1996 and their first release was the stellar 2003 vintage. Meticulous viticulture and modern cellar practices ensured that Vilafonté was at the cutting-edge of fine wine. The Cabernet Sauvignon based Series C is seriously structured and powerful, as maiden vintages offer perfectly mature, poised wines. Today, Vilafonté is one of the highest scoring Bordeaux-style reds in South Africa.

Strauss Series C 03-27 NFT captures a 6-bottle case from each of the first 25 years of Vilafonté. Vilafonté was recently crowned ‘Outstanding Wine Producer and Best Red Wine Producer of the Year' by The International Wine and Spirits Competition.

Click here to view the NFT list for this lot.

Click here to see the full line-up on our NFT Website

• An exclusive & exceptional dinner for 3 guests at acclaimed Stellenbosch restaurant Rykaarts hosted by Vilafonté owner Michael S. Ratcliffe and/or Head Winemaker Chris de Vries. A selection of vintage Vilafonté to be carefully paired with the evening.
• The wines will be cellared at Wine Cellar (Professional wine storage, Cape Town) vintage cellar until maturity (estimated 2029) or withdrawal.
• Each bottle within the NFT is also minted as an NFT on the polygon blockchain. This allows for the withdrawal or trading of single bottles, or the entire NFT at any time. Strauss & Co will coordinate the NFT through to maturity, making sure each vintage is added, as well as ‘burning’ NFTs when stock is withdrawn.
• Insurance to be undertaken by new owner.
• All Web3 development is undertaken by partner Fanfire. Director Gert-Jan van Rooyen is also the Associate Professor Extraordinary for the Internet of things at Stellenbosch University.
• Payment can be made using any of the methods Strauss & Co accepts (cash, credit card, EFT) or optionally with cryptocurrency.
• Fanfire will facilitate payments made in ETH or BTC.
• Sp(i)eel NPO will receive 1,5% of the hammer price from Strauss proceeds

Why NFTs?

Non-fungible tokens are a highly efficient way to package a collection of wines for trading and investment. The digital contract, stored on the polygon blockchain, includes all the provenance, pricing, transaction, sensorial and aging information. This importantly authenticates the bottles within the NFT since all the wines were selected from the estate’s library stocks, corresponding to each bottles’ seal-code. NFT transactions are cheap and fast, and don’t add any marginal energy cost. The NFTs can be traded by the owner on any platform, currently also on Opeansea.

The NFTs include perfect cellaring of the wines until maturity, while the contracts are held in a custodial wallet or sent to a cold wallet such as the Venox Vault.