Al As A Wine Critic: What Will They Think Of Next!

Last May, news broke that Artificial Intelligence or AI was used to write a convincing wine review.

- Shoba Narayan

The news, reported in Scientific American and Food & Wine magazine quoted two reviews, written using “deep learning” algorithms, went thus: “This is a sound Cabernet. It’s very dry and a little thin in blackberry fruit, which accentuates the acidity and tannins. Drink up.” Another said that the wine was, “Pretty dark for a rosé and full-bodied, with cherry, raspberry, vanilla and spice flavours. It’s dry with good acidity.”

If you read this, would you believe that it was a human review? I would.

I am caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, I subscribe to the growing antipathy in wine circles over the pretentiousness of wine descriptions and the esoteric terms popularized by some critics. You know the kind I mean? Descriptions that talk about cat’s urine, tar, wet leather, and the insides of a man’s shoe (not a woman’s shoe but the more robust version that comes from a male chromosome) in an attempt to illuminate a Northern Rhône. Such overwrought prose is supposed to entice you to sip the said bottle.

Robert Parker, the revered and reviled American wine critic, is often blamed for these long and often meaningless descriptions. His descriptions include words like “a sweet nose of creosote, asphalt (has anyone smelled creosote and if so, what is it?)” Other Parker classics say that a wine smells like sweaty saddles, rubber, a cigar box, pencil lead, sea spray or an array of berries. Such overwrought descriptions may be specific but are useless because they don’t aid olfactory memory.