The well-known wine collector Russell Frye, who sold $7.8 million of his wine through Sotheby's in May 2006, has launched a new website, www.wineauthentication.com, dedicated to "helping the wine industry fight the battle against counterfeiting."
The website has a number of interesting features including:
- A repository of news and articles on wine counterfeiting as well as solutions to the problem.
- A discussion forum
- A bottle registry service intended to help identify whether two people have a bottle with the same serial number.
- A bottle photo library (including the ability for users to upload photos)
- A list of top 10 wine counterfeits
- The ability to report a suspected counterfeit
- An "inexpensive" authentication service (no indication of price provided)
Business model
The site intends to cover its costs through corporate sponsorships and by requiring "a token membership fee." See the About Us page. Sponsorships and advertising is what this site should focus on. Even "token" fees will scare off the vast majority of people from participating in the community. Without participation, there is no community.
Suggestions to make the site even better
- Identify the "experts" behind the site. The Authentication Service page mentions that there are "specialists" on staff. What are their credentials? Who are they?
- Publish a note for wine collectors on "How to spot a counterfeit wine" and a list of particular clues with specific wines (e.g., label changes in particular vintages).
- Start a blog on the site to share wine counterfeiting expertise.
- Make the Top 10 Counterfeits list more than a list. Publish actual case studies showing detailed photos of bottles deemed to be counterfeit with the reasons explained.
- Draft auction houses or others who may routinely encounter counterfeit bottles as contributors to the site. Consider making them "sponsors" in return for their non-cash content contributions.
- Work with online cellar management software providers to collect and exchange bottle registry information. Speaking for Vinfolio, we would be interested in cooperating with our VinCellar software. We don't currently enable our users to record serial numbers for wines in their collection but it would be easy to do. It also seems far more likely for wine collectors to do so in this context than to make the effort to go to a special site to do it.
Bottom line: Wineauthentication.com is a site to bookmark and visit often.
P.S. Regarding the label image, the 1945 Mouton Rothschild is the most expensive bottle ever sold at auction (a 4.5L bottle was sold for $310,700 in February 2007).
