Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/437957
w w w. v w m m e d i a . c o m J a n - F e b 2 015 | V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T 1 2 7 Chalk it up to the recent Kurniawan scandal, and maybe also to fear of doing business in China: Concern is growing in the wine trade about counterfeit wines. Let's face it, no one wants to be sued by a billion- aire misanthrope over a little bottle of refilled wine. To date, a number of methods have been used to prevent or dis- courage wine and spirits counter- feiting, and most of the hurdles are imposed by complexities of packag- ing, such as bond stamps, engraved or hand-numbered labels, propri- etary marked corks, embossed bot- tles and other insignia. Eventually, it seems that even well-educated crooks are upended by some trivia of packaging. A Nov. 13, 2013, Wine Specta- tor blog post cited an estimate by Sud Ouest, a Bordeaux newspaper, that 20% of the wine sold on the international market is fraudulent. That sounds hysterical, and the blog poster, Robert Taylor, pointed out as much. It does, nonetheless, demonstrate just how concerned Bordeaux is about increasing coun- terfeiting of wine. One newer anti-counterfeiting weapon is the Near Field Commu- nication (NFC) tag, which can be integrated into labels or capsules. phones manufactured for the U.S. market, including iPhones. You may be familiar with the app "Bump," which allows sharing of contact information when two users bump their phones together. "Today the NFC markets are most dominant in Europe, Asia and J a p a n , t h o u g h the United States i s a l s o s e e i n g rapid growth in this field," Fes- traets said. "It is e s t i m a t e d t h a t N F C w i l l s o o n e v o l v e i n t o a popular form of p a y m e n t a n d d a t a e x c h a n g e technology in the United States." F e s t r a e t s explained that the t e c h n o l o g y c a n work two ways: a s a t w o - w a y reading and writ- ing system that a l l o w s s h a r i n g of data, and as a one-way system in which a pow- ered device like a phone or card reader reads and writes to the chip. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and use a Clipper Card for commuting, you know how this works: You scan your card, and the fare is deducted and registered on the card. All of the readable information that can be obtained by scanning the chip is stored on secure servers that communicate with the unique chip placed on each wine bottle. That information may include the name and vintage of the wine, grape varieties, tasting notes, har- vest dates, barrel regimen, name of the winemaker and the number of bottles produced. As is the case with a QR code, a consumer may also be able to share tasting notes with a social network, buy a bottle online, add a bottle to a virtual cel- lar or download a certificate of authenticity. The end consumer or an interme- diate party can scan the NFC tag with a smartphone and mine it for information. What is the serial number of this bottle? Has it been tampered with? The tags can be covertly embedded in packaging or advertised to buyers as part of t h e p a c k a g i n g . The technology is b e c o m i n g m o r e s o p h i s t i c a t e d all the time, and i m p l a n t i n g N F C tags into labels or closures may just be the strongest w e a p o n y e t i n the war on wine piracy. A s u b s e t o f r a d i o - f r e q u e n c y i d e n t i f i c a t i o n (RFID) technology that takes place o v e r a s h o r t e r, m o r e s e c u r e range, NFC com- m u n i c a t i o n w a s f i r s t p a t e n t e d i n 1 9 8 3 . I t h a s r e c e n t l y b e e n d e v e l o p e d b y a coalition of manu- facturers includ- ing Nokia, Sony and Philips, and a forum group that now includes more than 175 member companies, from banks to wireless carriers and mobile device makers. NFC PIONEER One of the companies pioneer- ing the use of NFC tags in wine and other luxury goods – including per- fumes, spirits, cosmetics and art – is Selinko, a Belgian public limited liability company formed in 2012. According to Selinko co-founder Gwen Festraets, who is also the company's vice president of mar- keting and communication, the platform gained popularity as a means of putting phones together for secure payment transactions and gaming invitations in Europe and Asia. However, the technol- ogy is becoming more prevalent in + Near Field Communication (NFC) tags can be scanned by smartphones and deliver authenticity information to consumers and members of the wine trade. + NFC tags can be covert or overt. + The readable information is highly secure and main- tained on outside servers. + NFC tags can be used to deliver information about wine serial numbers, pro- duction techniques, avail- ability for sale and more. AT A GLANCE Selinko co-founder Gwen Fes- traets believes NFC technology will become much more prevalent in the U.S. in the coming years.