Today, New Zealand wine and spirits producer Invivo enters the crypto market for their celebrity wine brands Graham Norton’s Own and Invivo X, Sarah Jessica Parker. 

First released, in what will be a continuing series of auctions, are ten Graham Norton HE-DEVIL NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) that combines the best of both the digital and real worlds and marks the launch of Norton’s sixth wine, GN HE-DEVIL, available in New Zealand this November.

NFT’s are vouchers of authenticity for digital assets that can be traded and tracked with blockchain technology. In an innovative move, Invivo’s first foray into this virtual world will pair both digital and physical unique assets and experiences.

The Graham Norton HE-DEVIL NFTs will unlock a “first release” bottle of new wines, a physical static print of their artwork signed by the Invivo Cofounders and membership to the Invivo Federation of Friends (IFF). The latter will be a series of surprises and delights including exclusive virtual wine tastings and discounts on Invivo products. 10 HE-DEVIL tokens are offered for sale on Opensea now at an opening price of $300* and the auction will run for 14 days.

In a world-first, one of the Editions will be eligible to unlock a surprise live, virtual, one-on-one celebrity tasting experience with Graham Norton, with net proceeds of this NFT given to charity.

The second collection of NFTs will follow soon after and, among other assets, include the Sarah Jessica Parker X label artwork in a digital form, from the award-winning Invivo X, Sarah Jessica Parker Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and Rosé from Provence. Future collections also include digital imagery of Invivo’s infamous global shipping ‘wine protest’.

Founded by two entrepreneurial Kiwis Tim Lightbourne and Rob Cameron, Invivo has rapidly created a name for itself – being awarded Wine Spectator’s Top 100 wines in the world in 2020 and a Deloitte’s Fast50 growth company. Invivo has successful star-studded wine collaborations with Graham Norton and Sarah Jessica Parker who are both shareholders of Invivo. 

The NFT market for wine is still relatively young and previous wine NFTs have unlocked artwork and ownership of barrels and wine, but never before has there been an NFT that has unlocked a virtual celebrity wine tasting, a new release bottle of wine for every launch, a physical print of its artwork and membership to the Invivo Federation of Friends club, that unlocks a unique series of unique wine experiences.

This is a long-term play for Invivo, which is focused on extending their community further globally and digitally, through their regular NFT releases. 

Invivo Cofounder Tim Lightbourne comments “At Invivo, we were the first winery in the Southern Hemisphere to equity crowdfund successfully back in 2015 and we always aim to do things a little differently.

“We enjoy building the Invivo community, and we see our long-term NFT strategy as a part of our business, building value in the digital world and creating an exclusive community with the IFF (Invivo Federation of Friends) who will be eligible for Invivo surprises over the coming years. This is about continuing to innovate in the wine world. Some of our NFT owners might not be familiar with Burgundy but they will understand what Blockchain means.”

With over 14 million bottles of wine sold since launch of the GN range, Invivo hopes there is a fan base out there wanting to have their own collectable Invivo NFT.

“Future plans could include the metaverse – we’re currently exploring opening a virtual wine store in a metaverse virtual mall, where an avatar purchase of a bottle in the digital world can transfer to receiving a physical bottle delivered to your home anywhere in the world,” says Lightbourne.

“Invivo NFT token holders would have exclusive access to the shop opening in the metaverse.”

The first owners of the 10 NFT tokens will be eligible to receive:

• A physical bottle of the future wines to be released by Invivo delivered to anywhere in the world for the owners.
• A physical static print of their artwork signed by the Invivo Cofounders.
• Once unlocked, one lucky owner of the Ten NFTs will be eligible to receive an exclusive one-on-one live virtual tasting with Graham Norton and the Invivo Cofounders. The physical tasting is assigned to one of the ten NFT owners at random.
  

 The He-Devil NFT owners will be eligible to receive one bottle of Invivo wine a year for the next five years.

 All Invivo NFT owners – of He-Devil NFTs and all future Invivo NFT releases – will be eligible for membership to the Invivo Federation of Friends (IFF) and therefore eligible to receive regular surprise and delights such as exclusive virtual wine tastings, the first to receive new wine releases, and discounts on Invivo wine and spirits products.

Net proceeds of the GN virtual tasting NFT will be digitally translated into physical currency and donated to charity.