Sommelier vs. AI

By Mike Muirhead, Sommelier (ISG), CMS*

Wine Lover: “I would like to pair a wine with salmon.”

AI: “Sounds great! How about Poseidon Chardonnay, Napa County, California $49.99.”

Sommelier: “Sounds great! Red or white? What is your budget? What current favourites are you drinking? Is there anything that you absolutely hate about wine? How are you preparing the salmon? Is there a sauce? What are the sides? Are you trying to impress a bunch of wine nerds, or do you just want everyone to be happy? Cork or screw cap? Do you want a safe pairing or an ‘out there’ pairing? …”

We have been evolving our online store for a long time, and since long before the world’s favourite buzzwords were ChatGPT and AI, our developer has been suggesting we add a wine-pairing feature based on an algorithm created by our Sommeliers. I have always resisted this option because I still believe the point of being a Sommelier is not simply connecting a wine with a meal but a wine with a person— which requires some more three-dimensional questioning.

Most Sommeliers go into this profession for two reasons: first, we love wine, and second, we love connecting with people. The wine study is actually the easy part—3 years of courses, sitting a 2-day exam with 35 wines tasted blind, essays, short answers, a service exam, and multiple choice. Learning about wine is easy if that is what you love! Being a Sommelier is much more difficult—it is about reading people and trying to tease out their wants and needs while minding their budget and trying to understand how they want to feel about the experience.

That is why the question, “What do I pair with salmon?” is not as straightforward as it looks. Are you having a glass on a Tuesday evening in the middle of winter as you are trying to get your kids ready for hockey? Or is it for a barbecue in the summer with your new boss? There are so many followup questions to simply “What are you eating?”

When it comes to the meal, pairing a dish isn’t just about what you are serving but also how you prepare it. Do you tend to use a lot of garlic? Do you choose to cook without salt? Do you use chicken in your beef bourguignon? As any

aspiring chef knows, a recipe is purely a guideline, and a Sommelier can guide you through the nuances of your dish and how it will pair with different wines.

We once had a customer come in and ask us to pair a wine with “locking myself in the garage to listen to Johnny Cash really loudly after a terrible day.” Good luck with that one, ChatGPT. (We suggested Method Cabernet, by the way— and the customer left a little happier than when he came in.)

I also believe it is my job as a human to connect people who love wine. Now, more than ever, wine lovers are looking to connect with winemakers who share their passion for specific aspects of wine, whether that is organic production, natural winemaking processes, or multigenerational family wineries. The story of a wine can create a bond between the winemaker and wine lover.

It is foolish to think that AI will not infiltrate the wine world—it already has. In the race to generate more and more data to improve service, most retailers are diving blindly into any method they can to leverage this information for better insights into their customers’ preferences. At the end of the day, there will still be food on the table and a bottle of wine that will suit the mood, the dinner, or—even better—both. And like good company, Sommeliers bring something to the table that cannot be replaced by AI.

*This article was written by Mike Muirhead, Sommelier, with the help of spell check and a very talented editor.