Lately I’ve been pondering questions of authenticity in wine commentary. Not the authenticity of the liquid in the glass (my usual preoccupation), but that of the writing itself. It’s not a joyful pursuit, this pondering, but generative A.I. has forced my hand.
Yesterday, the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards were announced, then swiftly earned criticism for a winning piece that reads like it was made by machine. Several commentators questioned how the judges could have missed the machine’s flashing lights, while the organizers defended their selection. I haven’t seen that anyone’s interviewed the writer, which seems like an obvious next step.
This is an ongoing story, but whatever the outcome, it’s evident that a published policy about A.I. use, transparency about the evaluation rubric, and consent and disclosure by writers would have saved a lot of heartbreak.
This incident invites us to confront an essential truth of wine writing, which is its sensoriality. The writer experiences a wine’s sensory inputs, runs them through their own lived experience and memories, then uses language to craft insights for readers. This is equally true of tasting notes and of stories about people, regions, and styles. The reader relies on the writer’s eyes and ears and palate and mind to taste the world, as well as their ability to generate ideas about these impressions that are worth reading.
An LLM or an A.I. bot (let’s just call it the machine), being non-corporeal, lacks not only that human sensory apparatus but also that human mind and memory. It has none of the capabilities that enable a human to write persuasively about the aesthetic phenomena of material culture. To write, in other words, about wine.
Yet A.I.-generated wine writing is everywhere. The machine gamely spews text that mimics the cadence of the works on which it’s been trained. The results are an exhausting read. The pacing is staccato, each paragraph a single sentence. There are repeated not-this-but-that constructions. The text is rife with analogies that seem novel but don’t hold up to scrutiny. There are arguments that tilt at meaning without landing their point. The pieces end, invariably, in a non-sequiturial mic drop. The machine has ingested the motifs of good writing, but has used them like meat, not salt.
Worse, there’s nothing in the work to drink or eat, to see or feel. There’s no fingerprint on the stem or lipstick on the rim. There’s no light on the vines or smell of the moldering cave. And there’s certainly no maudlin revelation, three glasses in, that the boyfriend was right to leave after all. The text is a ghost, non-carnate, like its creator.
A wine writer who’s used the machine has forfeited the joys of a fiercely difficult, but deeply rewarding, exercise. Writing about wine invites me to confront my own messy humanity as well as that of my reader. That effort’s only worthwhile because we’re both alive.
Here’s what I’m reading this week
Guide to Le Guide
Hospitality writer Danielle Newbold interviews Chris Watson, a former inspector for the Michelin Guide in the UK and Europe, getting deep into the works of the review machine. Among the gems: “People assume Michelin hires for a refined palate, but that’s not it,” Watson says. “They’re actually looking for a neutral palate, one they can mould to match inspectors around the globe. The expectation is that after training, you rate a restaurant consistently with everyone else. A 1-star in Tokyo should be consistent with a 1-star in London.” Neutral palate; I cannot possibly imagine what that’s like.
I get too hungry for—
Spaniards are eating earlier. At least some Spaniards, those who’ve decided to prioritize sleep, digestion, and an earlier morning start over the tradition of dinner at 10:00 PM. Since the pandemic, dining has shifted a full hour earlier, according to restaurant booking data, and the curve continues to bend. Some people are concerned about losing their culture of socializing, even as others have rebooted the old tradition of tardeo, gathering with friends for a late afternoon snack and drink. Sometimes that’s all you need.
Slopping it up
Anna Darrow finds a dispiriting lack of imaginative food writing about her local scene. Dubbing it “Boston restaurant slop,” she offers a primer on the most overused terms, including spritz, subterranean, speakeasy, swanky, lounge, moody, and maximalist, along with evergreen clichés like haute, exclusive, and elevated. The writing is bad, but worse is “the absence of a point of view,” she says. “Not a theme—these restaurants are positively bursting at the seams with theme—but an actual position, a hill on which to die.” If everything is maximalist, then nothing is maximalist.
Red sauce, white wine
Winemaker and pasta aficionado Dan Petroski is back with another installment of A Year in Pasta, reporting this time on wine pairings for the summer pastas of Sicily, Tuscany, and Campania. Think tomatoes always need red wine? Think again. “We went into dinner asking whether regional wine belongs with regional cooking and food. We left with a less orderly question: what if belonging is not only a matter of address, but of behavior? The wines that belonged knew when to brighten tomato, when to absorb chile, when to accept eggplant, and when to bring enough tannin for meat. They did not need to be the greatest wines in the room. They needed to keep us eating.”
A wine to take us out
Colli di Lapio Clelia Romano Fiano d’Avellino 2023
About $25; imported by Skurnik
Pale gold, highly perfumed, wild-flowery, with a fragrance of honey and pear and grass. Texturally it’s almost viscous, broad and deep but not sprawling, with flavors of quince paste and green olive, peppercorn and brine. Pour it with fennel salumi, toast points with lardo, oysters or other oceanic things, maybe almonds or hazelnuts. Nothing too complicated, too saline or sharp; you want to let this light shine through.
See you next week.
River vineyard sketches ©2026 Meg Maker
Dan Petroski’s viewpoint is both original and inspiring. He’s caused me to look at wine, especially Italian white wine varieties that I was not originally a fan of, through a completely different lens.
I was going to ask your about the artwork till I read the credits- it's your work! It's beautiful, Meg. Also, Your analysis of AI writing is poetically spot-on.