Yao Family Wines, former NBA basketball star Yao Ming’s winery in Napa Valley, is releasing its top label – ‘The Chop’ – alongside a limited edition NFT at auction.
Having blazed a trail in the art world, the wine industry is catching up with the NFT trend. Yao Family Wines is the first winery in the world to offer a wine up for auction paired with a NFT digital collectible.
The Chop Drop wine auction event will go live on 14 April (Wednesday) 12pm PST for 48 hours.
The Chop Drop wine and NFT auction offers 200 paired lots. The bottle #11 of The Chop and NFT #11 will be brought in for a special auction as for paying homage to the year that Yao Family Wines released its first vintage, and for the number Yao Ming wore during his NBA career.
The Chop 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon is produced from a single barrel of wine from a single vineyard in the Rutherford District of Napa Valley.
“Pairing this exquisite wine with a limited edition NFT should appeal to wine collectors, sports memorabilia collectors, NFT collectors, early adopters and anyone who appreciates the value of one-of-a-kind assets,” Jay Behmke, president, Yao Family Wines said.
“As a Napa Valley-based winery with a Chinese founder, we’re also pleased to dedicate a portion of proceeds from The Chop Drop to the Asian American community at this critical time.”
“Blockchain is the biggest technology revolution since the Internet. The emergence of NFTs is the first consumer-oriented expression of value creation beyond crypto currency.
“NFTs are a glimpse into the future of blockchain-powered assets and will become the standard for ownership, trading, provenance and trust,” said Jonas Hudson, co-founder of The GFT Exchange, a platform delivers NFTs that are ‘Authentic Digital Collectibles’ powered by Blockchain technology.
NFTs, which stands for ‘non-fungible tokens’, are files on a blockchain. These tokens are able to prove ownership and represent the authenticity of an item.
The technology has been embraced by the art world – the NFT of digital artist Beeple’s collage work sold for US$69 million at Christie’s last month and made him among the top three most valuable living artists.
編輯：Frida Xu
