Maureen Downey

Dubbed ‘The Sherlock Holmes of Wines’, Maureen Downey, is an independent expert on fine and rare wine and wine collection management, and is the foremost global authority on wine fraud, counterfeit wine and fine wine authentication. She advises the world’s top collectors in purchasing, selling, and managing their collections with her firm, Chai Consulting, founded in 2005.

In 2015, she launched WineFraud.com to help assist both the wine trade and collectors become educated about the realities of wine fraud and counterfeiting in global markets, as well as how to authenticate fine wines. It now has over 40,000 images of both authentic and counterfeit bottles, labels, ink, corks and capsules to aid members in authentication.

Chai Vault Inc, is Downey’s new venture – a blockchain based solution to proving authenticity and provenance of a bottle for its entire lifespan. Once certified, either at production, in a direct provenance situation, or in the secondary market by one of our certified, licensed TCM Authenticators – bottles offered for sale can have their online Ledger of Authenticity & Provenance displayed for view by potential buyers. For the first time, buyers of wines and spirits will be empowered to see the proof of authenticity and provenance history of a bottle prior to making a purchase.

Today, Ms. Downey is considered one of the top women in wine and can currently be seen combatting counterfeits in the Netflix film, “Sour Grapes”.

Web3 & Wine

Web3 applications are going to change the way we produce, distribute, purchase, and enjoy wine. Bringing transparency to a heretofore opaque industry will empower producers to demonstrate exact vineyard and sourcing information to consumers and connect with them in ways never before considered. Blockchain security will bring transparency to supply chain and secondary market movement at the bottle level and provide demonstrable authenticity and provenance data to buyers prior to purchase, thereby stamping out a considerable amount of fraud. NFTs create opportunities for producer/consumer interaction at the time of consumption, and even after the fact: NFTs are retained in digital wallet and can be shared with other wine lovers and producers, opening opportunities for the producers to see who is enjoying their provably authentic bottles, and in what settings.