Artificial Intelligence and Wine Preference: A Bad Marriage

I've seen a number of websites crop up in the last few years that use algorithms and artificial intelligence to curate wine selections for you to have shipped to your doorstep. And, I have seen words attached to them that they are foolproof.

Hmm.

Perhaps the letters after fool were incorrect and proof should have been ish or hardy. I tried a few of them, but didn't give them my address or credit card, so I wasn't getting burdened with their choices in wines, but I did want to see what they were like.

Theoretically, it works. A decent programmer can tell a computer how to interpret data and once informed, the computer will always execute that algorithm perfectly. So, it's not the computer that is flawed, but the algorithm.

Consider this set of questions and I am going to change them up just a little bit from what I went through in the questionnaire just to not incriminate any test.

  • Which flavor do you like best: cherry, strawberry, or blueberry?
  • Which would you eat first: green peppers, green beans, green onions?
  • Which smell do you like best: lavender, rose, sunflower?
The problem with each of these questions is there is no context? There is no natural follow-up? And, it's why a great curator (perhaps a sommelier) without the perfect logic of a computer will make better decisions for you than the artificially intelligent sites.

Suppose you said you like green peppers best in the second question. Why? Texture? Flavor? Smell? The crunchiness while chewing? Were your peppers cooked or uncooked? Did you eat them alone or with something? What was that something? These sites don't ask you any of these questions.

Let's consider a conversation between two humans. I asked you the second question and you answered green peppers. One thing that might come to mind is the chemical in green pepper that gives it its unique vegetal flavor, our old friend methoxypyrazine, known in the wine world as pyrazines. After asking further questions, I learn that you really like white wine because you like your wine colder. Well, now I have the information that I need. 

Which white wine (some detail please) fits this description? Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand is high in pyrazines and often has those secondary or tertiary green peppers that tend to come through more as grapefruit as a primary flavor.

See how a human gets better answers.

In my opinion, don't waste your money on AI, at least not yet.

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