Wine is hard: all the varieties, the food pairings and the hard-to-pronounce names.
When faced with a restaurant wine list that is just too complicated to navigate, many people immediately call for a sommelier. Others, though, pull out their phones to ask artificial intelligence for recommendations. It even happens at one-star Michelin restaurant The Dabney in Washington, D.C.
Chefs at The Dabney cook everything on an open flame, from catfish from the Chesapeake Bay to seasonal local vegetables, to cheese from Appalachia.
Christian Urbina, The Dabney’s wine sommelier, said many nights, customers check out the wine list and then head straight for their phones.
“You can see them kind of bobbing their head in one direction towards that list, and then bobbing their head back towards their phone and kind of typing something in,” Urbina said. “Maybe two, three days ago, there was a guest who had the font really large, and you could clearly see her typing in, ‘What does Barbera taste like?’”
It’s Urbina’s job to answer questions like this. He takes these instances to mean a customer wants to learn more. When he sees a customer asking AI about the menu, he approaches with a wide smile, introduces himself, and encourages guests to ask questions.
The customer asking AI about Barbera had made up her mind by the time he approached the table.
“She said, ‘I really love Barbera. I think I’ve had it before. This sounds really interesting. What do you think about it?” Urbina said. “And I respond with just as much curiosity. ‘We just put that Barbera on the list. It’s incredible. It’s juicy. It’s so easy to drink. I think you’re gonna love it. Can I pour you a taste of it?’ It becomes a moment of connection.”
Urbina said he understands why patrons go to their phones: Wine intimidates.
“There have been walls around wine for a very long time,” he said. “Whether it was just the monarchy and the Pope and the royals drinking wine centuries ago, or even now, wine hasn’t always been accessible. So, for someone to seek curiosity in their own privacy, to me, makes sense.”
AI typically provides only generic descriptions of wine; it doesn’t know about unique small-production wines that vary from one year to another or how to share personal stories of visiting vineyards.
“ Coming to a restaurant, especially a restaurant like The Dabney, it’s meant to be a special moment,” Urbina said. “And you see the fire and you see the chefs, and you hear the tins shaking with cocktails, and you hear the corks popping, and it’s meant to feel theatrical, and it’s also meant to feel like you’re in someone’s home.”
Some sommeliers are furious that diners are tuning out the experts for an artificial chatbot.
Sommelier Elle Roberts works at a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City. On social media, she posted about her experience: “They sit on their phones and ask AI. This has happened multiple times when I approach a client to see if they have questions about the wine or the food. They look me in the face and tell me no, and then I watch them ask AI. This is so crushing because I’m like, I studied this s*** for years, and I’m standing here getting paid to help you. But instead you’re asking the little robot in your phone.”
Urbina said he understands feeling defeated when customers prefer to ask AI. Like the rest of us, Urbina faces an uncomfortable truth: AI does stuff that he can do now.
His plan for now is to acknowledge what AI is good at. He uses it to help manage purchasing and inventory, to translate foreign articles, and then with customers.
As a sommelier, Urbina supplements the artificial intelligence with his face-to-face human intelligence when he recommends a wine pairing for The Dabney’s signature blue catfish slider, super flaky with curated cornmeal.
“ Personally, I think a glass of champagne is not just perfect for a catfish slider. I think it’s just always right,” Urbina said. “Thierry Fournier is the producer. This is the small farmer. This is the tiny, family-run vineyard. In this case, Thierry Fournier is the fifth generation, very representative of what we choose to pour.”
“It’s not necessarily a big, rich, full-bodied champagne as some can be,” Urbina continued after uncorking the bottle, “but it’s also not thin or unbalanced, where you get this salty bite of catfish. Well, now you want to take a little sip of champagne. Well, now you want to go back to the catfish, and it’s a nice, simple dance.”
____
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2026 WBUR