Artificial intelligence (AI) can’t taste or smell - at least not yet - but it is now increasingly helping people buy a decent bottle of wine.
Blake Hershey realised that there needed to be a easier way for people to pick a bottle that they’d enjoy, either in a restaurant, supermarket or wine shop.
“For all the advances in technology, the process of flipping through large wine lists full of obscure wine jargon until you give up and ask the waiting staff for a recommendation, when they don’t know your preferences, seemed outdated to me,” he says.
And so the idea for US-based Sippd was born, with the app launching in the States in 2021. While other wine recommendation apps are now increasingly incorporating AI, such as market leader Vivino, the difference with Sippd is that it was based on the technology from the very beginning.
New users start by completing an online wine quiz that analyses their wine preferences, such as colour, body, acidity, flavour, sweetness and price. Then the app’s AI software does the “heavy lifting”, generating thousands of personal wine recommendations that it calls “taste matches”. These are rated in percentage terms, with scores of 100% aiming to be a perfect match.
You can then start scanning wine lists or labels with your mobile phone’s camera, and Sippd will give you your taste match scores for each bottle. Sippd then continues to learn when the user tells the app about his or her wine purchases. The aim is that the app’s individualised recommendations get ever more accurate.
Currently only available in the US, Maryland-based Sippd now has 100,000 users, and the app is free to use. The business makes its money by inviting people to buy recommended wines directly via the app for delivery.
So, instead of tasting a wine, all you need do is scan the label to find out if you’ll like it … 
No more roll and spit … 
