How to: talk to Claude about wine

the bots are taking over, but the difference between information and experience matters now more than ever

Everyday, as I scan headlines and observe A.I-induced lay-offs in every industry, I nervously pray/chant/manifest/meditate on the mantra, “My charisma ensures my job security, my charisma ensures my job security, my charisma ensures my job security”.

Maybe if I say it enough times it’ll really be true.

People have consulted their phones for wine advice for my entire career and I have not felt threatened by it, until recently. For years, it was Vivino. A awful glitchy wine rating app, in which random uneducated wine drinkers rated their wines with a star system. People took the average star rating as God’s word and decided they’d only drink wines with 4+ stars. We all pretended as if those stars weren’t granted by some random schmuck named Bob who only liked bad wine?? Silly.

I think Vivino is a fantastic resource for those looking to keep track of wines they’ve enjoyed. For rating systems or for advice on what to order, I think it’s a terrible resource. It’s crowd sourced information and the crowd is, for lack of a kinder word, stupid.

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Now, we have A.I.

It is better than Vivino in every way and, though this certainly puts me in the minority of sommeliers, I’m here for it.

A.I made this image of me being replaced by A.I! It took about 8 seconds and cost me $0.

New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov published this piece today, “A.I Is Coming for the Sommeliers*” and when I shared it with my team at work, I got met with a whole lot of doom. Distressed crying emojis, broken heart emojis, the double red exclamation point emoji, bad vibes all around.

Sommeliers are an analog people. We work with an old tradition. We work with our hands. And we are notoriously late to adopting new technologies. I understand why some of us are feeling threatened, confused, disappointed, and annoyed.

I, unlike my coworkers, found comfort in some of Asimov’s words.

A.I will absolutely memorize every vineyard, vintage, soil type and grape variety in the world, for sure, without a doubt. It will do it quickly and it will do it without error. In fact, it’s probably already conquered all of France in the time you’ve been reading this newsletter.

A.I, however, will never be a charismatic performer.

A.I will never be able to read a vibe.

A.I will never be a storyteller in the way that I know I can be.

A.I will never have taste, energy, or rapport.

“Even with A.I., the human element can’t be replaced. No place that truly cares about wine would try… the human connection will prove stronger than anything chatbots might contribute… A.I. is not a charismatic somm. It hasn’t come close to putting smiles on people’s faces.”

A.I culture demands sommeliers be more personable and less encyclopedic. Guests no longer need you to tell them hard facts. They have more facts in the palm of their hand than I probably ever will have in my mind. What they need is charisma, performance, connection, and great stories.

Of course, A.I is fantastic for efficiency. I haven’t even scratched the surface of what I know it can do. But, I know it can build something in 6 seconds that would take a normal human a full week to accomplish. As far as back-end wine inventory and organization, things our guests should never see or think about, I can think of 800 ways we should be implementing A.I to streamline and improve our business model.

Wine consumption, however, has never been about efficiency. Wine has always been about romance. Bots cannot provide romance (except for those kinds of bots, if ya know what I mean - ew.) and that comforts me, to an extent.

Wine Ideas readers (and those of you I know from real life) know this to be true: I’m a storyteller. I’m not an encyclopedia. And I see the optimism in the future of wine sales in which my skills are actually more important than rote wine fact memorization.

Do I ask Claude wine questions? Of course I do!

Do I think you should ask Claude wine questions? Of course I do!

I think curiosity is always a good thing. We should celebrate people being curious enough about wine to go to Claude and ask him (it?) a question. This is net positive for the wine industry. We want and need more curious drinkers.

I deal with guests all the time who seem embarrassed by their lack of wine knowledge, and therefore, don’t want to ask their sommelier questions. Asking A.I is a great way to ask your wine questions without risking the judgement of a wine snob sommelier. I apologize on behalf of sommeliers everywhere for our judgemental snobbery. A.I will never give you that.

I do not advise, however, consulting only Claude and not your real life somm. I believe there is a balance. Claude can identify the 5 wines that fit your criteria. You can upload wine lists, tell it what you’ve enjoyed in the past, and it can get you really close to the perfect wine for you. You can pass those selections on to your sommelier, who can read the vibe, know the menu, and filter accordingly.

We do not need to battle sommeliers vs. bots (the sommeliers will definitely lose - I mean, look at us).

We can work together to achieve the same goal: getting you the right wine for you.

*I do take issue with this clickbait-y title. A.I is coming for practically everybody, not just sommeliers. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Technology progresses and humans adapt. Tale as old as tiiiiiiime.