Terms and Conditions

1.What Cellarcoin is

Cellarcoin is a wine custody house. Every bottle you see here is already lying in a climate-controlled cellar under a bonded warehouse arrangement, with its own lot number. That cellar is not always ours: a lot may be held by Cellarcoin, by the estate that made the wine, or by an accredited third-party warehouse. The title you hold is the shortest way of proving that the lot is yours; the wine is the asset, and the title is the paperwork.

These terms cover the website, the account area, the marketplace, the redemption of a title for the bottle, and bookings for tastings and cellar visits.

2.Accepting these terms, and changing them

Using the site means accepting these terms. If you do not accept them, do not open an account and do not buy a lot.

We can change them — prices, procedures and the law all move. Material changes will be announced to account holders before they take effect, and the date at the top of this page always says when the current version was published.

3.Who can use Cellarcoin

To hold a lot you must be at least 18, or older where local law sets a higher age for alcohol, and able to enter into a contract.

You will need an account. Above certain amounts we run identity checks and apply anti-money-laundering rules, as any business moving goods of this value must.

Some jurisdictions restrict the shipping of alcohol. Where that affects you, we tell you before you buy and not after.

4.Your account

Keep your credentials to yourself, and tell us straight away if you think someone else has got into your account. Until you do, what happens under your account is treated as done by you.

If you connect a wallet, its keys are yours alone. We never ask for a private key or a seed phrase, and we cannot recover one that is lost.

5.What you are buying

A specific bottle, identified by its lot number and already lying in custody. What you receive is the title to that lot: a transferable record of ownership, anchored on chain so that it can change hands without the bottle having to move.

The title is not a share, a fund unit or a financial instrument. It entitles you to that lot and to nothing else: the wine itself, its custody, and whatever experience the lot unlocks.

6.How the bottle is kept

It lies in the dark under a bonded warehouse arrangement, between 12 and 14 °C with stable humidity. The chamber is instrumented: the reading shown on your lot page is the sensor's, not a promise written on a page. Custody may be held by Cellarcoin, by the estate itself or by an accredited third-party warehouse, and the conditions are the same in all three cases: whoever physically holds the bottle, Cellarcoin answers to you for it, and delegating the cellar does not delegate that away.

There is no minimum term. A lot bought this morning can be claimed this afternoon.

Each lot keeps its own record — lot number, temperature, humidity and date of entry — and you can consult yours whenever you like from the lot page.

7.Insurance and risk

Every lot is insured at replacement value for as long as it is in custody, and the cover continues in transit when you claim the bottle.

If a bottle is lost or damaged while it is in custody, the insurance responds at replacement value, and it makes no difference to you who was holding it. That is what a cellar can commit to; no cellar can promise that a particular vintage will be available to buy again.

8.Prices, payment and taxes

The price of a lot is the one shown at the moment of purchase. Taxes and duties that apply — which depend on where the bottle is going and on when it leaves the bonded warehouse — are shown to you before you confirm, not added afterwards.

A purchase settled on chain carries that network's fee, which is not ours and which we do not receive.

9.Claiming the bottle

Redeem the title whenever you want the wine. The bottle is taken out of custody and sent to you in temperature-controlled transport; the taxes and duties that apply are shown before you confirm. Where a third party holds the cellar, the request still goes through Cellarcoin and you deal with us.

Redemption marks the title permanently as redeemed, together with the date the bottle left custody, and the lot is withdrawn from sale on the platform. The title itself is not destroyed or blocked: it remains the record of the lot and can still be transferred. A lot can only be claimed once, so a title carrying the redemption mark no longer entitles anyone to the bottle. Check that mark before acquiring a title from a third party.

You will need to give a delivery address somewhere we can lawfully ship wine, and identity verification may be required before the bottle is released.

10.Transferring or selling a lot

Titles can be transferred or listed on the marketplace at any time, while the bottle stays exactly where it is. That is what lets a case change hands without anybody shipping it twice.

The price is whatever a buyer is willing to pay. We do not quote, project or guarantee valuations.

When a title moves, custody moves with it: the new holder inherits the same lot, the same record and the same right to claim the bottle.

11.Experiences and bookings

Some lots unlock an experience: a tasting, a cellar visit, an event. Booking one takes a place from a limited capacity, records the lot that granted the right, and can be cancelled from your account.

The experience is run by the house that hosts it, on its date and at its address. So that the house can receive you, it is given your name, your contact details and any note you leave.

12.What you must not do

Do not use Cellarcoin to:

• do anything unlawful, or to launder money;
• manipulate the market, with false bids, sales to yourself or coordinated pricing;
• open several accounts in order to get around a limit or a check;
• scrape, probe or disrupt the platform, or run automated tools against it without written permission;
• impersonate someone else, or claim a lot that is not yours;
• upload malicious code.

13.Suspension and closing an account

We can suspend an account if we have reason to believe it is being used for fraud, for money laundering or for any of the conduct above, or if a verification we are required to run cannot be completed.

A suspension does not take your wine. The bottle stays in custody, registered to you, and we will tell you what has to happen for you to recover access or claim it.

14.Content and intellectual property

The texts, the photographs and the design of the custody record belong to Cellarcoin or to whoever licensed them to us. The names and labels of the wines belong to the houses that make them, and appear here to identify what is in the cellar.

Anything you write — a booking note, a tasting note, a message to us — stays yours. You give us permission to store it and to show it where it needs to appear, and nothing beyond that.

15.The service itself

We keep the site running as well as we can, but a website is not a bottle: maintenance, faults and outages at third parties happen. An interruption does not affect what is in the cellar and it does not change who holds a lot — the custody register is the record, and it does not live in the browser.

16.Not investment advice, and no promised value

Nothing here is financial, legal or tax advice. We do not quote prices, publish indices, project returns or guarantee that a bottle will be worth more later. Wine prices move, and they move in both directions.

Buy a lot because you want the wine, and treat the possibility of selling it later as exactly that: a possibility.

17.Responsibility

We answer for what we control: keeping the bottle in the stated conditions, keeping the register accurate, and handing the bottle over when you claim it. Behind the bottle itself stands the insurance described above.

18.Applicable law and complaints

If something goes wrong, write to us first. Most things are settled faster that way than through anybody's legal department.

19.Contact

Questions about these terms, or about a specific lot — its provenance, its condition, its documentation — go to info@cellarcoin.com or through the contact page.