Blind wine tasting competitions are stressful, even for the most skilled tasters, but Konstantin Baum MW was a picture of calm.
He accepted a glass of red wine, tasted it, and then began to characterise the wine. He made it sound so appealing, that many in the audience looked like they wanted a glass, too.
But then the artificial sommelier went to work. Line after line of text appeared on the screen, diving in to every aspect of the wine.
Baum was up against sommelier.bot, a machine with an extraordinary level of wine expertise. Which one of them represents the future?
What is AI?
The blind tasting was the last session of the Meininger’s Wine Goes Tech conference in Düsseldorf, held the day before ProWein.
The day began with a presentation by Hans-Christian Boos, who said that there was too much “bullshit being talked about artificial intelligence,” mostly by people who don’t understand what it is.
Boos is a former member of the Digital Council of the Federal Government of Germany who is active in the European start-up scene, and has even worked with the US military.
Many people, he said, think that artificial intelligence is Chat-GPT or Dall-E, which lets people create new texts and pictures. “If it was just that, we wouldn’t have to worry,” he said. “Artificial intelligence is something completely different — it’s about ending the era of industrialisation.”
“Artificial intelligence is about ending the era of industrialisation.”
The industrial revolution was about exploiting economies of scale, he went on, where a process would be created, standardised and scaled. “The whole point is that we produce a lot of the same thing, and that makes it cheaper. We’ve standardised it, we’ve consolidated it, and then we’ve built a machine that does the same thing, over and over.”
At present, said Boos, 30% of everything is automated — but by 2025, that number will be 50%. “This is a speed none of us could imagine,” he said. “It took us 200 years to get to 30%, and seven to get to 50%. The change you’re going to experience is going to be mind-boggling.”
AI offers the promise of individualisation.
But where industrialisation allowed humans to make the same product over and over at speed, AI offers the promise of individualisation. When it comes to agriculture, AI will let viticulturists consider the needs of each individual plant. It will also let businesses craft individual messages for each customer.
What AI is not, however, is a machine with a mind of its own. That, says Boos, is science fiction. “The AI that is going to stand in front of you and say, ‘I love you?’” he said. “Sorry, you’re going to have to wait at least 150 years for that.”
The wine industry is already using AI
But while the love bot may take a while, the audience heard from a range of experts that AI and other cutting-edge technology is already fulfilling some of its science fiction promise.
Fernando Romero Galvan, a graduate student from Cornell University, is a specialist in combining machine learning with geographical information and imaging, to spot problems in the vineyard before they become critical. He gave a talk on how, in collaboration with NASA, he used space-based technology to spot leafroll virus in a vineyard — before the disease had begun to manifest.
AI is also changing things at the ground level. Dr. Matthias Porten from DLR Mosel and Dirk Hübener from 2farm discussed the shortage of affordable vineyard labour, which is becoming critical in many regions, and how autonomous machines will be able to pick up some of the work.
They also demonstrated how a simple, hand-held tablet can be held up against a vine. An AI programme will then show the worker the exact spots on the vine that need to be pruned, which means that less experienced workers will be able to take on the complex task of pruning, without risking damage to the vine.
Félix Solis Ramos, Commercial Director of Spanish giant Félix Solis Aventis, did a very interesting presentation on how much of their production is now done by robots, while winemaker Fabrizio Marinconz revealed how the giant co-operative Cavit in Trento has combined its geological, water and vine information together, to give an extremely fine understanding of all their different terroirs. The technology alerts growers to any problems, so they can take remedial action before the problem gets out of hand.
Altogether, there were 15 presentations, demonstrating how AI and associated technologies are already opening the way to personalised wine recommendations, better viticulture, better winemaking, and individualised customer communications.
How did sommelier.bot perform?
For the moment, sommeliers who work the floor are safe. Baum’s explanation of the Pinot Noir in his glass was simply more human and interesting than that of the sommelier bot.
In fact, the sommelier.bot came across like a wine geek who is eager to tell you everything there is to know about a wine, whether you want to hear it or not.
But that’s not the point. High-end restaurants are unlikely to wheel out robots any time soon. Instead, programmes like sommelier.bot may soon be able to offer online consumers exactly what they’re looking for.
Which, in turn, will help wine retailers sell the right wine to the right customer.
That’s the promise — what’s the reality?
Professor Simone Loose of Geisenheim University brought things down to earth. She presented the results of a German business survey done in November 2023, which asked people across the wine trade about their use of digital.
Prof Loose noted that only part of the wine value chain can be digitised — after all, vines are only planted once every 30 years or so, and the grapes are only harvested once a year. “But the sales machine is running every day,” which means the ability to speak to customers individually offers enormous potential for marketing.
The survey revealed, she said, that the finance, accounting, sales and marketing departments of wine companies are already using digital solutions.
However, Prof Loose also said it was clear the wine industry is sitting watching other industries leap ahead and is failing to take advantage of the potential opportunities offered by the technology.
This is despite the fact that the businesses she surveyed agreed that the future is digital. The problem is most of them don’t have the time or resources to take full advantage of the new technologies.
The wine industry is failing to take advantage of the potential opportunities offered by the technology.
“You have a huge oversupply,” she said, noting that there are wineries investing €1.30 to produce each litre of wine — which can then only be sold for 80c a Litre. In such a market, there’s very little appetite for spending money on new technologies.
Prof Loose ended by saying that the only way the wine sector will be able to embrace the new technology is if it embraces better financial models. First, the sector needs to understand its costs properly, and then it needs to find ways to cover those costs.
“The first task to get the sector back on track,” she said, was economic sustainability. “And then we will have the money to invest into all the digital solutions.”
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We are creating a white paper based on Wine Goes Tech, which will look at how AI and associated technologies are going to impact the wine value chain.
All photos: Christoph Grothgar
