Wine is alive. It carries history in every drop, memory in every pour. A bottle isn’t just glass and cork. It’s years of labor, soil, and time made tangible.

But without provenance, that story fractures. The work of a grower, the patience of a cellar, the care of generations, all put at risk the moment a bottle leaves the estate.

Too many bottles are lost to neglect, fakes, or careless hands. Too many collectors left wondering if what they hold is what they were promised. Too many producers see their names tied to wines they no longer recognize.

This is not acceptable. Not in Burgundy. Not in Bordeaux. Not in Champagne, Tuscany, or Piedmont. Not anywhere.

Provenance is not a detail. It is everything.

And today, it is under threat.

The Promise, Broken

Fine wine should be one of the purest expressions of human creativity and patience. It’s meant to connect winemakers and wine lovers through a shared appreciation of legacy and craft. A great bottle, perfectly kept, should be the closest thing we have to time travel.

But the current system breaks that promise. Bottles bounce between warehouses and middlemen. Settlement takes months. One in five bottles spoil due to mishandling and poor storage. The secondary market, a $25 billion opportunity, is still mostly offline, fragmented, and opaque. The bottle that began its life as an expression of perfection ends up vulnerable, diminished, or destroyed.

Producers know this pain well. As Pierre Girardin put it, every unnecessary shipment risks destroying years of work. The condition of the bottle is inseparable from the reputation of the estate. When provenance breaks, the damage is permanent.

Collectors Deserve Better

Collectors feel it too. Access is restricted, with rare wines held back for VIPs or parceled out through opaque lotteries. Even loyal buyers are often shut out. Those who do find bottles face absurd markups, often paying double or triple release price on the secondary market.

And what do they get for their trouble? Anxiety. Is the bottle authentic? Has it been cooked in transit? Has someone tampered with the cork? Without documented provenance, every transaction feels like a gamble.

Instead of confidence, collectors are left with doubt.

Producers Must Be Heard

For winemakers, the secondary market is both a blessing and a curse. It signals global demand. It builds prestige. But it also strips them of control.

They have no say in how their wines are traded. They rarely know who drinks their bottles, when, or in what condition. They see their life’s work shipped across continents in unsafe conditions, putting their reputation at risk. And despite seeing their bottles resell for two, three, even five times retail price, they receive nothing back.

This lack of participation forces many to raise prices just to survive. It is not greed. It is necessity in a broken system. As one Burgundian producer put it, if they could share in the value created on the secondary market, they would not need to raise release prices year after year.

A System That Fails Everyone

Collectors pay high fees, often 20 percent or more, to auction houses or trading platforms. Sellers wait months to settle. Bottles leave warehouses, cross borders, and change hands, losing certainty with every step. Provenance breaks down. Spoilage rises. Trust evaporates.

The result is a market that fails everyone. Collectors lose confidence. Producers lose control. And the cultural value of fine wine, one of the great luxuries of human civilization, erodes with every compromised bottle.

The Principle We Stand For

There is a better way. One where bottles never lose their story. Where provenance is not an afterthought but the foundation. Where collectors trade with confidence, and producers stay connected to the wines they crafted.

Younger generations demand this shift. Nearly half of fine wine buyers are now under 45. They expect transparency. They expect authenticity. They expect immediacy. They want to drink wines they can trust, not hide them away in fear.

This is the future of fine wine: a market where provenance is preserved until the moment of opening. A system that ensures every bottle tells the truth of where it came from, how it was kept, and when it was shared.

Provenance is not negotiable. It is everything.

The Rallying Cry

The fine wine market stands at a crossroads. The old way is crumbling under its own weight. Slow, fragmented, and untrustworthy. A new way is needed, one that respects the bottle, honors the producer, and empowers the collector.

That way begins with a simple principle: Provenance is everything.

And something new is coming.

‍