What the wine trade says about AI (and what it has to do with wine digital identity)

A press review, as of 20 October 2026. Nine quotes from people, studies and official documentation, each with name, date and a link to the original, and what we read in them. The quotes belong to their authors; the commentary is ours. Quotes originally in Spanish are our translation; the original is at the link.

A restaurant, a Friday night. At the next table, someone photographs the wine list with their phone and types: "which one goes with the fish?". Your wine is on that list. The answer that person gets is written by an artificial intelligence, out of whatever it once read about your wine, somewhere.

That scene sounded like the future three years ago; it is now a habit. And in 2026 the wine trade has talked about artificial intelligence more than ever: at conferences, in surveys, in interviews. We have gathered what people say with their name attached, and what we take from it. It comes down to three ideas.

"It is not here to replace the winemaker"

The first idea is repeated by those who know both things at once, wine and technology.

What we read. There is a line none of the three crosses: AI does not make the wine, nor does it decide what the wine is. That is said by whoever makes it. What AI can do is work on what the winery has said: translate it, tell it, answer questions at three in the morning.

That is why wine digital identity (IDV) starts with the winery, not with the machine. The winery says what its wine is, which grapes, which vintage, which legal data, which story, and signs it. Everything else, inside and outside our house, rests on that. An AI that invents a wine takes hours of Excel off nobody's hands: it creates a problem.

The consumer already asks a screen

The second idea does not come from wineries but from the people who buy.

What we read. The question is no longer whether people will look up your wine before ordering or buying it. They do. The question is what they find. An AI answers with what it has read: an importer's sheet, a shop that no longer sells it, a tasting note from four vintages ago, a forum. If the winery has said nothing anywhere machines can read, someone else writes the answer.

"But my wine is already on my website." For a person, yes. For a machine, most wineries' websites are a pretty page from which it has to guess the grape, the vintage, the appellation and the alcohol: no marked-up data, no address per vintage, no format a model can read. What the AI does find with data are the shops and the aggregators. The winery's version exists for people; for machines, not yet.

The aim of wine digital identity is exactly that: when an AI talks about your wine, it talks with your version. The third voice sets the limit, and it is worth taking seriously: nobody can guarantee today what ChatGPT will answer tomorrow, and Google itself warns there is no trick or shortcut to appear in its answers; only an indexable, useful, accessible page. What is in the winery's hands is the source: one address per wine and vintage, with data structured for machines, said and signed by whoever makes it, and a count of who reads it. That is our line: give AI the official version of your wine. We promise the source, and we measure the answer.

Wineries are moving, from the office outwards

The third idea comes from surveys of the trade itself.

What we read. Digitalisation has entered wineries through the office door: emails, reports, campaigns. It makes sense; that is where the risk is lowest. Two years ago one in three wineries saw potential in AI writing for them; today two in three in the United States already use it for that.

What has not yet happened, in most wineries, is for that digitalisation to reach the wine itself: the place where the person about to drink it is holding it. In Europe almost every bottle already carries a legal code with its ingredients, the way most wineries have chosen to comply with the law; it is a legal page and must stay clean. Next to it there is room for a second door, the experience: a page that is read, listened to and answers in the language of whoever holds the bottle. And the same identity opens from the winery's website, from a search engine or from an AI assistant, without scanning anything. One identity, one address, many doors.

What does not change, and what does

What does not change: the winery makes the wine, and what the wine is gets said by whoever makes it. None of the nine voices in this article says otherwise.

What does change: where it is told and who reads it. Today people and machines read it, and machines answer for you if you have not spoken. Wine digital identity is the way to speak first: once, at an address of your own, signed. And no bottle needs touching: the identity is live from the day the winery signs it; the printed code arrives with the next label run.

If you want to know exactly what it is, it is explained in "What is wine digital identity" and, on one page, in the public definition.

When an AI talks about your wine, let it talk with your version.

Quick questions

If my wine has an IDV, will AIs recommend it?

Nobody can guarantee that, and Google warns there are no special optimisations for its AI answers. What the IDV guarantees is the source: your official version, structured and signed, at an address machines can read. And your dashboard shows which crawlers have read it.

What does an AI read about my wine today?

Whatever it finds: importers' or shops' sheets, reviews, forums. If your website has no structured data per vintage, the AI has nothing of yours to read and answers with someone else's version.

What do I have to do?

Say what your wine is and sign it. From that moment the IDV enters the index and search engines are notified. What speeds it up most is your website linking to the IDV of each wine.

All quotes are taken from the original text, checked on 20 October 2026. If a source disappears, the quote is withdrawn.