IG Wines partners with tech firm

Fine wine merchant and investment firm, IG Wines Partners has partnered with a tech firm to create digital blockchain tokens for high value wine and whisky.

The London and US-based company, which was founded in 2011, has teamed up with tech firm Mattereum on two projects.

The first project will see it add shared ownership of casks of whisky to its investment portfolio, which it says will allow a larger pool of investors and traders to invest in the casks. Specially created ‘Mattereum asset passports’ bundle together legal rights and guarantees that show clear and transparent lines of ownership of each cask, which it says will increase confidence among both buyers and sellers, and therefore ultimately boost the value of the casts.

The fine wine merchant has also work with Mattereum on ‘trustable’ non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for fine wine, digital tokens that use blockchain technology and Mattereum asset passports to denote ownership of physical goods.

Paul Hammond, co-founder and director of IG Wines, said this was “the beginning of a new standard in wine provenance and authentication.”

Mattereum founder and CEO Vinay Gupta said the tech would give buyers transparency and clarity on their purchases that would generate “greater buyer confidence, creating value for current market participants and encouraging broader participation in the wine and whisky markets”.

“This partnership will open up powerful new tools which will help everybody to access the wine and spirits supply chain on an equal basis,” he said.

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