Bottles of champagne equipped with chips to fight against the resale market

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Each year, hundreds of bottles of champagne are bought and resold at exorbitant prices on the “grey market”. To fight against this resale system, two winegrowers from Avize, near Epernay, Anselme and Guillaume Selosse, father and son at the head of champagne Jacques Selosse, had an idea: track their bottles by integrating a chip – an “NFT” chip – in each tag.

They started implementing this system in early April on their 60,000 bottles. A very easy to use device, once the chip is installed, all you have to do is download the WID application – developed by the French company WID Group, based in Côte-d’Or – to follow the route of the bottle.

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Anselme Selosse only has to draw his smartphone to scan the chip, a bit like a QR code. “It’s very fast, enthuses the winemaker. We see that the product has been identified. We can read “bottle of rosé, disgorged on November 4, 2021, dosage: 1.5 grams” and we will look at the traceability.”

But for tracing to work, resellers, like consumers, must play the game and also scan the chip. “Each time the chip will be read, it will record the reading location”, explains Anselme Selosse.

To scan the tracking chips on champagne bottles, you must use the WID application. © Radio France
– Nael Dupont

We will be able, on a planetary level, to see that the bottle has been read in Spain as well as in Norway or elsewhere. – Anselme Selosse

And it is precisely against this kind of transit that his son, Guillaume Selosse, manager of the estate, wants to fight.

Avoid bottles being resold ten times their price

“These are not bottles that can travel at any temperature, in any conditions, without the wine being altered”, insists Guillaume Selosse. He estimates that if a bottle remains, even for one afternoon, in a car, “necessarily, she will have deviations.” And the consumer risks turning against the producer, especially since he will have bought this bottle very expensively on the “grey market”.

“Our 2008 vintage bottle, which is sold at the estate for €300, which is already a certain price, is found on certain auctions at more than €3,500 or €4,000.” – Guillaume Selosse

The chips integrated into the labels of Selosse champagne bottles cost €0.50 each.
The chips integrated into the labels of Selosse champagne bottles cost €0.50 each. © Radio France
– Marine Protais

Hence the interest of tracing these bottles, even if it has a cost: about 50 cents per chip, which represents an annual budget of €120,000 for Selosse champagne.


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