HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach - 9 June 2022 - Grand Cru Cellar (GCC), one of the largest wine importers and distributors in Hong Kong, announced plans to enter into the Non-fungible token (NFT) space, making it the first wine distributor in Asia to offer a wine NFT. The strategic move is set to revolutionize the wine industry in Asia by leveraging blockchain and NFT technologies.

GCC's wine NFTs will be developed in a strategic partnership with SOLARR, Asia's first decentralized NFT-Fi platform. The wine NFTs will include a collection of exclusively designed NFTs representing 360 bottles of Château Margaux fine wine spanning 30 vintages from 1978 to 2007 in the winery's history. This unique collection is ex-Château which was stored and delivered directly from the winery, remarkably preserving its quality since 1977. Collectors are willing to pay a premium of up to 100 percent more in prices for vintages stored and sold directly from winery to collectors as there is no question of authenticity.

NFT holders can exchange the NFTs for physical bottles of wines and once redeemed, the NFTs will be destroyed to mark their redemption. Until the wine NFT has been redeemed, the physical fine wines will be safely stored in a temperature and humidity-controlled warehouse to maintain their quality. These wine NFTs can be freely traded on SOLARR's NFT-commerce platform or even given as gifts to family and friends.

"NFTs will help to increase the liquidity and price discovery of high-end fine wines. The auction market for these fine wines has always existed but if the bidding flow is low, the wine's value will be locked up due to a lack of bids," says Mic Wong, the NFT project representative at Grand Cru Cellar. "Once liquidity improves, the wine's true value can be realised. We are looking to cooperate with SOLARR to auction a rare and unique collection of Margaux wine."

"SOLARR's NFT-as-a-Service (NFTaaS) takes the complication out of NFT-commerce. Our one-stop, end-to-end NFT services offer a highly efficient way for GCC's wine collections to be auctioned off, eliminating the need for buyers to attend physical auctions," says Alex Lee, Founder and CEO of SOLARR. "SOLARR is helping GCC execute the entire NFT value chain from composing the utility, designing the NFTs, facilitating the auction, offering NFT payment gateway, all the way to managing ownership transfer of the physical wine."

NFT using blockchain technology increases trust and transparency in the wine industry by improving wine provenance. Wines with provenance that are traceable all the way to when they left the winery, become more valuable.