What you did:

Bruxa was approached by the Gitcoin/Schelling Point team to have Thirsty Thirsty host a natural wine tasting at their Schelling Point Paris house, during ETH CC 2023.

Our goal became to reconnects Gitcoin House guests to the power of flavor & connection through a soulful wine party. TT and partner Rerenga Wines, voted Best Caviste in Paris by Le Fooding in 2022, curated a selection of four festive, French summer wines for up to 70 heads for a 2 hour gathering. We created a respite from the usual conference chaos, and a opportunity to bond in a meaningful way that reminded guests they're in Paris.

• Nathan, owner of Rerenga Wines, created the beautiful prompt of Community Wine: Wines interrogating the questions of ethics, inclusion and the aesthetics in search of a truly equitable wine community. He selected the wines, coordinated glassware, delivery, and presented the wines at the event.

• @Fiowl, DAO XP/Member and lead of TT's Wine Cocoon tasting series in Amsterdam in 2022, was there to host and share about our community.

• Paris hospitality locals, Clare & Dom, were the assistant Somms helping to pour the wines and work the room.

• Photographer Jainima took photos for us.

• @bruxa produced the event from afar by pulling in Parisian community and vendors, creating an ROS, laying out sequencing and to-do’s, designing tasting info cards + assets, liaising with the Gitcoin & TT team.

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The Wines

• 2022 Dom. Perraud ‘Balance Ta Bulle! Gamay Beaujolais, FR

  “Isabelle Perraud’s juicy, 8% gamay rosé. Residual sugar balanced by lip smacking bubbles. 1€ per bottle goes to Paye Ton Pinard, addressing issues of sexism & harassment in the wine industry.” - Rerenga Wines

• 2021 Complemen'Terre ‘NoLem’ Melon de Bourgogne Muscadet, FR

  “Manu & Marion Landron make this creamy & enveloping Melon de Bourgogne. Briny acidity + lees-y warmth. Certified by Nature et Progrès, the most ethically rigorous of the organic certification boards.” - Rerenga Wines

• 2022 Dom. des Grottes 'Voulez-vous Hybrider avec moi?’ Hybrid Blend Beaujolais, FR

  “A blend of white & red hybrids (Solaris, Cabernet Cortis, Plantet, Seyval Blanc) planted to experiment with zero treatment farming. An alien! Dusty peachy fruit with vibrant acidity. Romain, an absolute darling and radical os championing new labor structures & polyculture. ” - Rerenga Wines

• 2022 Absurde Génie des Fleurs ‘Zmeurica’ Cinsault blend Languedoc, FR

  Tom & Miha’s 7 layer blend of Cinsault, Grenache & Mourvèdre is a deep one of brambles and blues, an homage to the mystical power of 7 and the link between earth and air. Áerian and terrestrial. Guiding lights on Southern French wines.”
  - Rerenga Wines

Hypothesis going In:

The major goal of this event was to explore a partnership with Gitcoin and connect more deeply with their community. Originally we were approached to be an F&B partner for the full house programming, but due to the Gitcoin’s token dropping scope was reduced to one tasting event. This reduced the budget and Bruxa’s ability to be onsite. We hope to explore what more robust programming could look like for Gitcoin or other communities going forward. Inspiring!

This was also a moment where we got to execute with Euro community on the ground, with Bruxa producing from afar.  

What went well:

“Even though Bruxa was organizing the event from US, the timeline & set up all worked really well. It was super clear weeks before, exactly what needed to happen and when. Even tiny details were covered making it super low stress for me,” -Fiona.

“It's a vibe. Everything looks great, and Raf’s cheese and Charcuterie is on point as well!” - Jonathan, Gitcoin Schelling Point House Lead

We were able to find an incredible TT team from within the community to execute the event vision. A professional and rad crew, who pulled off a beautiful event highlighting thought-provoking, quality wine & products. Our event had a very different atmosphere and a cozier vibe than the others days, from what we heard.

Clare was at the door to personally welcome all of the guests, which differentiated us from the start.

The crowd was very nice and from a bunch of different realms of web3. The day we hosted was great as well, since the day’s programming was focused more on Impact and consciousness. Many guests had good knowledge on wine and were interacting a lot during the pouring with Nathan. 

Event gave us good exposure to new people. QR codes helped people to connect to what we’re up to. 

We had about ~160 RSVPs on the lu.ma that was mostly by invite from Gitcoin community. We did very little promo of the event. We thought it would be pretty packed, but the atmosphere was more intimate and chill. Wine was set up in the dining room, which created various nooks for micro-communities to emerge during the event.

We got everyone paid correctly. We were pleased to have our budget proposal met asking to cover all overhead for vendors time, labor, and materials, with a 20% cut to go back to the DAO treasury. We had Gitcoin drop the funds into our Juicebox treasury, too which felt really good.

What was challenging:

With a tight 2hr window, we had hoped folks would make it on time and stay for the duration. Attendance was lower than expected. We probably had 50-70 attendees come but never all at once. The house location was challenging, in the 14th, the South of the city. Many of the events were in other parts of the city so there was a lot of leaving early or arriving later, making it difficult to create a strong container. 

Nathan and Fiona gave an intro at the top of the event, explaining who we are and what we are doing, but many missed this. Those there at the beginning got the full intro + knowledge of who we really were. 

Many people weren’t familiar with Thirsty Thirsty - pros & cons. This was a very different crowd for us, but a beautiful group, who were very engaged and leaders in the space.

Paying vendors in fiat was clunky after the event. Thirsty Thirsty LLC had to pay directly into Euro via CC. Crypto would make way easier.

It was also unclear what to expect from the space when planning. We only had the airbnb listing to go off. Fortunately Jai had been photographing the previous two nights and provided some intel about the layout and suggestions for us to improve upon it.

What did you learn:

As always, it really depends on who shows up to determine the vibe. Attendance was heavily influenced by it being an internal Gitcoin event, at the house. 

Many people weren’t familiar with Thirsty Thirsty - pro & con.

It was a lovely collaboration that we’d like to further. However, when we are one party on a roster of heavy programming there isn’t much marketing support from the main host.

Atmospherically, we had to trust significantly in the inherent atmosphere of the house since we didn’t have the budget or ability to transform it.

This was an experiment production and leaning more into catering for other companies, which left less emphasis on our ability to position our community goals.