Crypto and Wine w/ Jeff Andrews & Ray McKee, Trothe Winery

Jeff Andrews was such a crypto fan that he built 4 crypto mining rigs in his family’s winery lab.  A mini-meltdown of one of the rigs didn’t diminish his enthusiasm, making it a no-brainer for Trothe, the new winery based on the best blocks of the 1,300 acres of the Andrews Family Vineyards in the Horse Heaven Hills in Washington State, to accept crypto right out of the gate. Jeff and winemaker Ray McKee talk about their passion for crypto, the process for accepting it as payment for wine, and the benefits for customers and the winery of using crypto in this episode of XChateau.Detailed Show Notes: Jeff’s background4th generation farmer in Horse Heaven Hills, Washington1st winegrapes planted in 1980A lawyer by trainingFamily farms 1,300 acres of vineyards (Andrew Family Vineyards)Exclusive source of grapes for Trothe WinesRay’s background2nd generation winemaker in Washington29 vintages in Washington in 2021, 1 in AustraliaWas the red winemaker for Chateau Ste Michelle for 10 yearsTrotheuses the best blocks of grapes from Andrew Family VineyardsTrying to make the best wine possibleCrypto enthusiasts (both Jeff and Ray)~2016-2017 - started investing a bit in cryptoBuilt 4 mining rigs in the winery lab to mine Ethereum1 mine had a mini-meltdown, which ended the experimentBenefits of crypto for customersSecurity of transaction - more secure than credit cardsAuthenticity/provenance for ownership of the wine - creates a secure record of wine ownership with the future potential to link each bottle to an NFTTrothe bottles have unique identifiers and custom made holograms on them - have the potential to link to an NFT in the futureBenefits of crypto for the winery“Get more crypto”Connect w/ customers with similar interestsTrothe can see where the wines are going in the world w/ cryptoSome marketing benefits - positive feedback on social and via emailThe crypto transaction processUses Coinbase CommercePuts an upper and lower bound on transactions to deal with crypto pricing fluctuationsCurrently on Vinespring e-commerce - does not yet integrate w/ cryptoCustomer needs to email / call the winery to request a crypto transaction, and then the winery sends an invoice via Coinbase CommerceThe transaction constitutes a sale of crypto from wine buyer to the winery and a purchase of crypto by the winery for tax purposesCrypto sales - none yet, wine has only been released for 1 monthOther wineries accepting crypto - Mondavi Sisters’ Dark Matter and Aloft Wines Get access to library episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.