Stop Drinking AI Like Table Wine
Why the Future Belongs to People with Better Taste
6 min read
Humanity Has Seen This Movie Before
When ChatGPT first appeared, most people reacted exactly as humans always do when confronted with something capable of changing civilization.
Some were fascinated.
Some were terrified.
Some dismissed it as hype.
Some immediately saw an opportunity.
Nothing new.
Wine has lived through the very same story.
For centuries it has been called the drink of the Devil, the Blood of Christ, the nectar of the gods, a symbol of luxury, addiction, celebration, culture and sin—sometimes all at once.
The bottle never changed.
Only the people looking at it did.
AI isn’t different.
Some people still ask whether it will replace humanity.
Others quietly use it every day to become better thinkers.
History rarely repeats itself.
But human behavior does.
We Are Finally Learning to Taste
Two years ago almost everyone asked one question:
Which AI is the best?
Today that question sounds almost as strange as asking:
Which wine is the best?
The answer is obvious.
It depends.
On dinner.
On mood.
On company.
On occasion.
On experience.
On what you’re trying to create.
The same is becoming true for AI.
We are moving from choosing the AI…
to choosing the right AI for this moment.
And that changes everything.
The AI Wine List
If AI platforms were wines, this is how I would describe them.
Not technically.
But by personality.
Because technology, like wine, has character.
ChatGPT — Cabernet Sauvignon
The universal classic.
Reliable.
Confident.
Easy to recommend.
Hard to get wrong.
The bottle almost everyone starts with.
It works for brainstorming, strategy, writing, learning, conversations, planning, creativity—and it somehow manages to feel equally comfortable in almost every situation.
If AI had a house wine…
This would be it.
Claude — Barolo (Nebbiolo)
Not for everyone.
Quiet.
Complex.
Intellectual.
Needs patience.
Rewards attention.
Claude isn’t trying to impress you in the first five minutes.
Like a young Barolo, it unfolds slowly.
It excels where depth matters:
long-form writing,
philosophical thinking,
careful reasoning,
software architecture,
coding.
Some people never understand Barolo.
Those who do rarely go back.
Grok — Syrah
Bold.
Provocative.
Sometimes slightly outrageous.
Occasionally inappropriate.
Frequently hilarious.
It says things others carefully filter.
Sometimes you laugh.
Sometimes you disagree.
Sometimes you think,
“Well… you really went there.”
But boring?
Never.
Gemini — Merlot
Balanced.
Diplomatic.
Reliable.
Comfortable.
Integrated beautifully into Google’s ecosystem.
No unnecessary drama.
No wild emotional swings.
Just a solid, dependable companion that quietly gets work done.
Not every dinner needs fireworks.
Sometimes you simply need a very good Merlot.
Perplexity — The Sommelier
Perplexity isn’t really a wine.
It’s the sommelier.
It doesn’t cook dinner.
It doesn’t become the conversation.
It simply knows exactly which bottle belongs on the table—and why.
If I need reliable research, sources, comparisons or fact-checking, I almost always open Perplexity first.
Because before tasting…
someone has to know what’s actually in the cellar.
Tokens Are the New Wine Budget
People often compare AI subscriptions.
I think that’s the wrong comparison.
The real currency is tokens.
Think of them as the budget for your dinner.
Yes, technically every platform can answer almost any question.
Just as almost any bottle can accompany dinner.
But opening a legendary bottle of Château Margaux to drink with melon and jamón would be absurd.
Using the most powerful reasoning model to summarize yesterday’s meeting?
Exactly the same kind of absurd.
And using a simple model for deep research that may influence a million-dollar decision?
That’s like bringing supermarket table wine to a Michelin tasting.
Neither is wrong.
They’re simply designed for different moments.
The real skill isn’t owning the most expensive bottle.
It’s knowing when each bottle belongs on the table.
We Confuse Loyalty with Taste
I notice something funny.
Many people proudly announce:
“I only use ChatGPT.”
Or Claude.
Or Grok.
Or Gemini.
Imagine saying:
“I only drink Cabernet for the rest of my life.”
Possible?
Of course.
Interesting?
Not really.
The greatest discoveries in wine happen when the bottle meets the right dish.
The greatest discoveries in AI happen when the model meets the right problem.
The future probably won’t belong to people who use one AI.
It will belong to those who instinctively know which mind they need to borrow today.
Taste Is Becoming a New Form of Intelligence
This is why I no longer think AI literacy is about learning prompts.
Prompts are techniques.
Taste is judgment.
Knowing which AI to choose, when to trust it, when to challenge it, when to combine it with another model—that feels much closer to what sommeliers have always done than what programmers imagined.
Perhaps we aren’t learning software.
Perhaps we’re developing a new cultural skill.
A palate.
One Last Glass
Maybe one day we’ll laugh that we ever asked:
“Which AI is the best?”
Just as nobody seriously asks:
“Which wine is the best?”
Because eventually we stop searching for the best bottle.
We start searching for the right bottle.
Perhaps AI is becoming exactly the same.
Not another competition.
A cellar.
A collection.
A matter of taste.
The future probably won’t belong to the people who use AI the most.
It will belong to those who understand which intelligence belongs to which moment.
Because in the end, choosing an AI isn’t really a technology decision.
It’s a judgment decision.
A taste decision.
A thinking decision.
And perhaps that’s what this new era is quietly teaching us.
AI doesn’t reveal its intelligence.
It reveals yours.
( If this essay resonated with you, welcome.
I’m exploring a new map of thinking—where AI, wine, systems, design, travel, neuroscience, and philosophy are not separate topics, but different languages describing the same reality.
This is only the beginning.)