The Thanksgiving wine chatbot has a human behind it
The next wine chatbot would like to make one thing clear: it is not a chatbot.
Ask Wines is a Thanksgiving advice service in which real wine professionals type the answers and sign them with their names. Its website says the service opens on November 25 at noon Pacific and runs for 24 hours, through noon on Thanksgiving. That is 2pm Wednesday to 2pm Thursday in Central time.
The project began with Evan Roscoe, a Napa-based wine-industry social media consultant, wondering whether the wine world could offer its own version of the Butterball turkey hotline. Punch reports that an Instagram call for volunteers brought 50 interested professionals by the following morning.
The questions need not be impressive. How much wine should you buy? What goes with turkey when half the table wants red? Is the bottle gathering dust in the cupboard still worth opening? The premise is that reassurance can be as useful as expertise.
The site’s sample advice is refreshingly practical: lighter Pinot Noir or Gamay for red drinkers, dry Riesling for white; roughly half a bottle per wine-drinking adult, with a little backup. These are examples, not a bespoke answer to every table or guest list.
Wine has spent years explaining that it is not intimidating while presenting itself in increasingly intimidating language. Putting an approachable person on the other side of the question may do more than another recommendation engine. The most useful feature is accountability: somebody has put their name on the answer.
Source: Punch
