The Robots Are Coming For Your Wine
How do you make the decision to purchase a wine you’ve never had before? Let me count some ways:
recommended by a server or sommelier in a restaurant
cute/interesting label
read about it in a magazine, email, website
tried it at a winery somewhere in the world
retail store staff suggestion
high score on a shelf talker
enjoy other wines from that producer, grape, country
asked a friend etc.
It’s 2022 now so time to add a new one: a robot made me do it. What if instead of any of the above a robot picked out your next wine based on your personal preferences and the recommendations of a cadre of experts? Don’t think it isn’t already in the works. A company called preferabli has been created a multi-patent, AI-based algorithm to give retailers the ability to target you with online wine recommendations guaranteed to smack your taste buds silly.
According to the Company, they use expert analysis of the sensory characteristics of all wines on the planet (some exaggeration by me) and machine learning to customize a wine store’s online recommendations for every individual consumer. You can answer a few questions and/or based on your purchase history, the bot instantly comes up with a bevy of beverage options just for you that already exist within that specific store’s inventory. You can trust it because they have Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers doing the tasting. You get a can’t miss recommendation on every visit and everyone is happy, right?
Not so fast, Bot Breath. Since it’s a B2B model, preferabli’s expressed intent is to help retailers “sell more and increase store loyalty.” Is it possible they tweak their algorithms in the retailer’s favor instead of yours? I’m not saying they do, but that’s the least of my worries. Here are two more.
First, I get it, bots are everywhere hounding you with stuff their algo’s think you want to buy. I subscribe to Pandora and with every shuffle an algo is determining what I want to hear next. Why is wine different? Well, for starters the cost of getting it wrong is significantly higher. If I don’t like the next song in the shuffle queue, I tap the screen and poof, it’s gone. If I buy a mixed case of preferabli recommendations online, what do I do if the wines don’t hunt? Who is left holding the rather expensive bag? Or let’s say the store is Total Wine. Are Masters of Wine going to parse the 47 California chardonnays under $25 and translate their (identical) characteristics to give you the perfect one each time?
Which leads to an even bigger problem of accountability. I buy wine all over the internet and rarely have a problem. Why? Because I tend to research the heck out of these purchases. I have a small, trusted band or writers and critics (whose names I know) and I make sure in advance that there’s a consensus of sorts and then I confirm that the store has among the lowest prices in the US. I could probably turn my decision-making process into its own algorithm, but then, that’s all it would be, i.e. mine. This is perhaps a long way of saying you should try to buy wine based on another, identifiable real person’s perspective so if something goes wrong you can say “well, Neal Martin and I disagree about Perth Pink,” I guess I need to adjust my personal algorithm regarding his notes.” In other words, if preferabli doesn’t offer traceability, then I haven’t really learned anything. You can’t argue with a black box. And oh by the way, do I want to spend a lot of time entering data all over the web to teach an anonymous bot how to help me enjoy wine? No thanks.
Even better: try to buy wine somewhere local where you can get to know the staff and they can get to know you. That’s the best algorithm of all. And if you go into a wine store and the salesperson isn’t passionate about the product and can’t articulate why, leave and don’t go back. Guaranteed their website will be just as boring, whether it’s AI-enhanced or not. Let me put it this way: would you take a golf lesson from Iron Byron?
I’m confident the good folks at preferabli have thought all this through (well, not that confident), and your bot-enabled wine shopping experience will be great. I’m really looking forward to making its acquaintance if I can spot it in the wild and will let you know what I find if I do. Maybe I’ll be drinking my own words?
