SAN FRANCISCO -- Building it took eight months and the combined brainpower of math, code and food-and-wine geeks.
The result is a new computer-generated wine-pairing service that developers say uses cutting-edge technology to answer an age-old question: What wine to serve with dinner?
"We think it's going to be tremendously helpful for people," said James Oliver Cury, executive editor of food recipe site Epicurious.com, which recently partnered with wine database Snooth to add the pairing suggestions to thousands of its recipes.
The recommendations are based on an algorithm that involved breaking down the recipes into hundreds of categories, including flavor profiles, ingredients and preparation techniques.
Among other things, the algorithm looks for words in proximity. Boiled beef with baked potatoes, for instance, is not the same as baked beef with boiled potatoes.
Pairings are listed at the bottom of recipes, along with the price of the wine -- the majority are under $20. Clicking on photos of the bottle or label brings up reviews and shopping information.
But can an algorithm replace the human touch in the very subjective decision of what wine to have with dinner?
Not really, said master sommelier Geoff Kruth, the wine director of the Farmhouse Inn & Restaurant in Sonoma County's Russian River Valley. The trouble with software pairings, he said, is that they factor in only the food.
"Just as much of the wine and food pairing is about the person that's drinking it," he said.
Snooth Chief Executive Philip James said that there was an effort to come up with wines that are widely available, but noted that there are multiple recommendations for each dish, with some wines being more esoteric choices for the adventurous.
"This is basically cracking open the heads of the finest food and wine critics that we could find and basically scooping their brains out and putting them into a database," James said.
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