Wine digitalization
Wine platform Crurated Ltd redefines the world of wine. Interview with its founder Alfonso de Gaetano and one of its most prolific winemakers, Charles Lachaux.
En primeur offers the opportunity to buy the most sought-after wines before they are bottled and released on the market. Wine platform Crurated Ltd. takes this concept to the next level with a new technology that offers its community members a sense of provenance and personalization. Alfonso de Gaetano, the company’s founder, has announced that Crurated Ltd members can now purchase certified fractional barrels via blockchain and NFT technology. The new offering also gives members the option of customizing bottle formats and labels to suit their specific needs.
It was during a trip to Denmark that we met up with Alfonso de Gaetano. Laptop under his arm and phones ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice, this former bigwig of the Google group is on the verge of realizing his wager: to reconnect the winegrower in direct line with his customer thanks to technology. At a time when the wine market is in turmoil and the price of certain bottles is reaching unprecedented heights, over 2,000 members have now joined his company. With a recent round of investor funding of $7.2 million, the start-up is establishing itself as a major player in wine technology.
The love of wine
Alfonso de Gaetano doesn’t seem to be impressed by the speculative frenzy that has plagued the wine world in recent years. This man with experience in finance, marketing and consulting sees this phenomenon as an opportunity to make his mark. “It all starts with a love of wine”, recalls the founder of Crurated Ltd. “Before defining the financial and technological aspects, it’s absolutely essential to put the passion for the vineyard and respect for the winemaker back at the heart of the project. Without these fundamentals, it’s impossible to build a relationship of trust.
It was after tasting a 2002 Cros Parantoux from Domaine Meo-Camuzet that he became aware of the complexity of winegrowing and the road still to travel. The entrepreneur met winemakers, listened to them and forged the links essential to the construction of his project. He tastes and even starts his own collection. He soon came up against the rarity of a product that was hard to find on the official market. “In the end, you can only buy what you find,” he jokes. Alfonso de Gaetano is frustrated at not having access to certain wines, and notes that the same people benefit from the allocations year after year. “The only way for me to get certain wines was through traditional auctions”. Not knowing where and how the wine is stored, he is regularly disappointed by the quality. It’s when he tastes a wine from a vintage considered average, but straight from the winemaker’s cellar, that the magic happens. “Tasting a wine that has never left the estate is an extraordinary experience. I created this company as a result of all these frustrations”. The Crurated adventure is launched…
Alfonso de Gaetano connects with young winemakers eager for change and keen to protect their wine heritage. While maximizing the value of winegrowers’ inventories through several transactional channels (classic auctions, sealed-bid auctions at first price, classic sales or private sales), he enables this young guard to control the speculative madness affecting the wine market by putting them in direct contact with wine enthusiasts.
Romanée Saint-Vivant
On the 8th floor of the Faelledparken in central Copenhagen is Geranium, recently voted Best Restaurant in the World by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Like a gastronomic and wine fairytale, the evening pays tribute to the sober, elegant cuisine of chef Rasmus Kofoed, while tasting a selection of wines from winemaker Charles Lachaux, present for the occasion. While guests enjoy a glass of Aligoté, followed by a glass of Nuit Saint-Georges “Les Poisets” 2017, before giving way to a drop of Romanée Saint-Vivant 2015, the internationally renowned Burgundy producer speaks from time to time with disconcerting naturalness. An inveterate enthusiast, he is the sixth representative of the family dynasty of Domaine Arnoux-Lachaux, and he invites us to discover his exceptional wines for an evening.
Far from wanting to free himself from his winegrowing heritage, Charles Lachaux is nevertheless part of a generation eager to regain control of its production in a market gone mad. With some fifteen authorized distributors around the world, the young winemaker works exclusively with Crurated Ltd for private customers. “Generally speaking, the wine world is a very traditional one, where getting things done can take a very long time,” admits the winemaker. When he met Alfonso de Gaetano, he was quickly won over by his approach. This first contact took place in the midst of a health crisis, at a time when the winemaker’s stock was skyrocketing on the markets. “It was like a bomb,” recalls Charles Lachaux, before continuing. “I saw an opportunity to control speculation while distributing stocks through a system of controlled allocations”.
Wine ambassador
The volume of mixed cases (an assortment of six different bottles sourced directly from Crurated Ltd) initially planned for sale over the course of a year was sold through the platform in less than six weeks. A lightning sale that definitively sealed the deal between the two protagonists and officially launched Crurated Ltd into the big leagues. “The only condition was to allocate a case to a single member at a fixed price,” he recalls. Charles Lachaux unwittingly became an ambassador of choice for the start-up. In addition to the commercial agreements between the two entities, the winegrower meets the platform’s members directly, who in turn become his customers, through the events organized. “There’s even an American wine enthusiast who makes the trip from the East Coast to experience this human encounter around wine for an evening”. Even if technology persists, it’s the human touch that counts…
