This Algorithm’s Taste in Wine Is Better Than Yours

So, you want to buy a bottle of wine. You sort of know what you like—bold reds, crisp whites—but not much more than the names of a few grapes. You head to your local wine shop, which, being a proper local wine shop, has a dizzying array of options: reds from Oregon, Argentina, and Italy; whites from South Africa, New York state, and California; bubbly from France. How can you be sure your money will be well spent? You approach the counter, where the cashier is smiling in anticipation of the question she knows is coming: Umm, could you help me out?

Dustin Wilson thinks there’s a better way to buy wine. “Just because an employee thinks a wine is awesome doesn’t mean a customer is going to like it,” he says. And he’d know: Wilson is one of only 230 master sommeliers in the world (the 2013 documentary Somm chronicled his quest to become one). His credentials include working as wine director for Michelin-starred New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park—a dream job for any wine geek, but one he quit in 2015. “I looked at the landscape of wine retail, and I thought what I could do was more promising than a restaurant,” Wilson says. “Retail hadn’t evolved in a long time, so I wanted to push things along.”