Penfolds, the flagship brand of Treasury Wine Estates, is launching a rare 2018 Superblend Imperial Duo as two NFTs on BlockBar, a New York-based luxury wine and spirits NFT platform for its first-ever NFT wine auction
Each NFT is tied to an imperial bottle of 6-litre Penfolds Superblend wine – 2018 Superblend 802.A Cabernet Shiraz and 2018 Superblend 802.B Cabernet Shiraz.
Normally, Imperial formats are reserved for Penfolds museum and superblend imperials are not available for sales in public, making the superblend NFTs highly collectible.
The one-off launch will be sold as two NFTs to one buyer via auction with a starting bid close to US$25,000 (approx. 7.6 ETH). Bids can be placed on BlockBar.com via cryptocurrency ETH or fiat from April 11 at 10am EST to April 13 at 10am EST.
Both superblends produced from the coveted 2018 South Australian vintage feature significant parcels of fruit from the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra, with different interpretations of the iconic Australian blend – Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.
802.A is a blend of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon and 32% Shiraz. The two varietals were aged separately in new American oak hogsheads for 22 months before blending.
802.B has a more balanced composition of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon and 45% Shiraz. Different from its American oak sibling, the wines were matured in French oak hogsheads for 19 months.
The superblend NFTs will serve as digital receipts that can verify the buyer’s ownership and authenticity of the two imperial bottles, which offer a chance for wine lovers to buy unique wines directly from renowned wineries and avoid wine counterfeits.
The wines will be stored at BlockBar’s facility in Singapore until the buyer decides to redeem the NFTs and collect the physical bottles.
As part of the NFT offer, the buyer will receive a 750ml bottle of the imperial duo to taste in a private virtual session with Penfolds Chief Winemaker Peter Gago, which must be redeemed within a year of the NFT release date.
If the auction winner is a previous Penfolds NFT owner via BlockBar.com, they will also be gifted a luxury Superblend 802.A and 802.B Decanter.
“The release of these special Superblend NFTs follows two highly successful Penfolds x BlockBar NFT drops. The response to date has been overwhelmingly positive. Penfolds first NFT linked to a barrel of 2021 Magill Cellar 3 sold in under 12 seconds for USD $130,000. Our second NFT release, linked to 300 bottles of 2018 Magill Cellar 3 sold out in under 10 hours. We look forward to seeing the response to our Superblend release,” said Kristy Keyte, Penfolds Chief Marketing Officer.
“We’re excited to partner with Penfolds once again to host BlockBar’s first wine NFT auction with an extremely rare offering for our loyal community,” said Dov Falic, CEO and co-founder of BlockBar.
Penfolds is the first wine brand to partner with BlockBar, newly founded in October 2021. Previously Penfolds launched its first NFT drop on the platform in November 2021, where a barrel of 2021 Magill Cellar 3 sold within 12 seconds for US$130,000. Penfolds’ second rare NFTs was also released on the platform in January this year.
