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Chapter One
It all began so simply. In London, one day in January 2014, the wine
writers Tom Nutkin, Albert Joshua and the superstar German winemaker Dr Titan
were having lunch with Nicholas Interr of Interr Brush & Rod, when the conversation turned to the
plight of the independent wine retailer in the face of competition from
supermarkets. Then Joshua brought up the idea of “local currencies” like Berkshares in Massachusetts
in the US, and The Lewes Pound
in Sussex in the UK. Both of these are currencies that have been devised
to encourage people to give their custom to shops and businesses in their local
area. What if the wine world introduced its own money? People who bought their
wine from an independent retailer could be given rewards of one kind or another
to encourage them to return. The currency might even help growers in some way…
The idea caught the four men’s imagination and before long they were casting
around for a name for it. Nutkin’s first suggestion was “Plonc”, combining
“plonk” with the sound of the late-lamented “franc”. Titan came up with
Winegeld while Joshua’s best shot was WiRos. Whatever the name, the challenge lay
in the technical challenges of creating a new currency, and it was at this
point that Joshua remembered a banker he’d once met on a plane. What was his
name? Ivo or Ivor something…
