For Chinese wine connoisseurs wondering what’s in their bottle, it’s blockchain to the rescue

It is a US$2.8 billion industry, but jokes such as “the Chinese gulp down more ‘French’ wines than France makes” and “at least half of the Chateau Lafite-Rothschild consumed in China is fake” have undermined its credibility.

Now, VeChain, a Shanghai-based start-up, wants to arm the wine trade with blockchain and build trust in wines imported to the city, the mainland’s second-largest market for imported wine after China’s southern Guangdong province.

The company is testing the waters with French producer Pierre Ferraud and Fils, and has signed a deal to get its 2017 Beaujolais Nouveau red wine verified on its blockchain platform, which is linked to Shanghai Waigaoqiao Direct Imported Goods (DIG) on the retail front.

“The beauty of blockchain is that shoppers can see information about the whole life cycle of a bottle of wine from various sides, including vineyards, logistics and retailers,” said Fu Yu, a partner at VeChain. Accounting giant PwC and business assurance major DNV are among its investors.

For instance, by scanning a quick response (QR) bar code, shoppers in Shanghai can get hold of winery details, grape type, an 18-digit Chinese customs declaration number, the date the bottle left the stock house, when it landed at a bonded warehouse in Shanghai, as well as when it landed at the DIG retail shops in the city.

For more premium wines, the company plans to embed a designated near field communications (NFC) chip near the wine stopper. Once the chip is broken, users can no longer read or write data onto its blockchain, alerting consumers about refills.