Jul 17, 2013Fine wines are vulnerable to counterfeiting or fraud, in large part due to their high value. A single bottle of French Bordeaux, from Château Le Pin, averages $3,000 and can be priced at up to $10,000 or more, making the trafficking of forgeries lucrative for counterfeiters. Photocopied labels, for example, can be attached to bottles of counterfeit wine, which can then end up being sold to consumers—often at auctions, or at any weak link along the supply chain.
Le Pin sells its wine in Europe, as well as in Asia, which is one of the company's focus markets. To combat fraud and counterfeiting—which the vintner says is not only expensive but difficult to prosecute—the firm sought a reliable anti-counterfeiting technology that would also be well-received by consumers. In 2012, it looked into technologies that included QR codes, Data Matrix, bubble codes (polymer film encoded with raised dots, each in a unique location on the label) and holograms, but found that all of these solutions could be copied using digital, laser or industrial printers.
Anti-counterfeiting identification technology company Selinko has developed a Near Field Communication (NFC) solution consisting of a high-frequency (HF) 13.56 MHz NFC-compliant RFID tag built into a wine bottle's label, an application for an NFC-enabled phone to capture that label's ID number, and a server to manage the collected data. This helps Le Pin's owners ensure that every bottle's label is authentic, and confirm that a particular product is in a consumer's hands. For Le Pin, the advantage that the NFC solution offered was its inability to be copied, says Gwennaëlle Festraets, a partner at Selinko, since each chip contains an encrypted, tamperproof digital certificate. "The entire communication is encrypted and is impossible to reproduce, even by ourselves," she says.
After working with Selinko to create a solution since January of this year, Château Le Pin began applying Selinko's NFC labels in April, beginning with its vintage 2010 bottles, as they were released. Each label's lower left corner, Festraets explains, includes a discreet Selinko logo indicating that the label is interactive. An Inside Secure NFC RFID chip encoded with a unique ID number is embedded in the label, directly beneath the Selinko logo. Le Pin printed a leaflet to be provided with each bottle, explaining how to employ the technology and referring users to the Selinko Web site to learn more or access the app.
The Selinko app is available at no cost, either at the Selinko Web site or at Googleplay. Users can log into the app on their NFC-enabled phone, and then place it near the Le Pin label. If the wine is authentic (that is, if it has a Selinko NFC tag embedded in the label), the bottle's certificate of authenticity and unique serial number will then be displayed for the user.
The transaction is also stored on the server, providing Le Pin with a view into what is happening with its bottles after they are shipped to a store or directly to a customer. Every time an individual reads the label via an NFC phone, the company has a record of that read event, and in that way knows where its bottles were distributed, as well as to which customer, as long as the customer supplies that information. This also provides proof of purchase for the consumer, Festraets says. The technology, she notes, is designed to "always respect the privacy of the consumer."
"Each scan gives very useful analytics, [such as] where bottles are distributed, consumed, by whom, and when," Festraets states. This data, however, would be available to Le Pin, "only if the owner [identifies] himself to the brand" when using the app.
Selinko is also adding several additional features, including a "one-scan buy" function with the NFC app, enabling clients to purchase a wine similar to the one they are scanning, by simply responding to a prompt and making a purchase. For example, if a customer was enjoying a bottle of wine at a restaurant, he or she could use a smartphone to read the label's Selinko NFC tag, and then opt to purchase the same bottle for consumption at home, or access the catalog to view other Le Pin products.
In addition, the system includes a feature known as "My Wine Registry," with which users can add wines to a virtual cellar stored on the Selinko server, leave personal notes about a particular wine they have tried and link those comments directly to their social-media networks. Once a label's tag has been read following a purchase, the software could also remove the bottle's digital certificate from Le Pin's records, thereby ensuring that the bottle is not refilled and sold again as a counterfeit product. A Le Pin representative was not made available to comment for this story.
Le Pin customer Olivier François reports that the solution provides him with confidence about the origin of each bottle that he purchases.
"When I bought the vintage of Le Pin 2010, I found a short explanation in my case about this new authentication system, and started to use it," François says. Not only did he read the tags in order to ensure that the bottles were genuine, but he also introduced the solution to friends who enjoyed the same wine. The benefit, he says, is the guarantee that he has "invested in an original product and a feeling of exclusivity with the unique numbering of each bottle. On top of it, I can also declare myself as owner of the bottle," using the Selinko software. Thus, if the bottle were stolen and recovered, François would be listed as its legal owner.
Although the number of NFC-enabled phones in the hands of consumers worldwide is still limited, Festraets says, Selinko expects the mobile handsets to soon catch up with NFC applications. "Even if awareness is today only mature in Asia and in some areas in the United States," she states, "in Europe, the number of NFC services and NFC-enabled devices will strongly increase in the comings months, and will help to develop interest in this technology."
Selinko also provides the anti-counterfeiting solution for other products at high risk of fraud, such as leather goods, cosmetics, or designer clothing or accessories. Customers pay for the solution at an annual rate, which includes the labels and server access.
