Clear answers about how the AI sommelier works, how to add it to a wine shop, restaurant or bar, what data it uses and how to try it.
Wineater is an AI sommelier for wine shops, online wine retailers, bars and restaurants. A shopper describes in their own words what they are looking for, for example "something for steak, under 30" or "a Barolo, but cheaper", and Wineater returns four wines from that merchant's own catalog, each with a short explanation of why it fits. A merchant adds it as a website widget, a QR code or an API.
Shoppers see a search box where they type what they want, then a set of four wine cards from the merchant's catalog. Each card shows the wine, its price and a one- or two-sentence reason it was picked, and links to the product page in the shop. Before any search, the widget shows a starting selection of four wines. Shoppers can then ask for more suggestions or for wines similar to one they like.
There is no single best choice: it depends on your catalog, your sales channel and the languages you need. Wineater is an AI sommelier built for wine merchants. It recommends four wines from the merchant's own stock, explains each pick, and can be added as a website widget, a QR code or an API. It comes with a 1-month free trial, so you can judge it on your own catalog.
A general-purpose chatbot answers from broad knowledge and can name bottles a shop does not sell. Wineater recommends only wines that are in the merchant's own catalog and not marked out of stock, so every suggestion links to something the shopper can buy from that shop. Each wine is also described on five aspects (food pairing, taste, origin, occasion, production), which the request is matched against. General chatbots stay useful for open-ended wine questions; Wineater is narrower by design.
Filters and search bars work best when shoppers already know the vocabulary: grape, region, vintage or price band. With Wineater, the shopper describes a situation instead, such as a dish, an occasion or a wine they already like, and Wineater translates it into taste, origin and price criteria. Filters remain useful for shoppers who know exactly what they want; Wineater is aimed at those who do not.
Vivino is a consumer app where people look up and rate wines. Wineater is a B2B tool that a merchant installs on its own website, menu or QR code. It does not run a public marketplace or a ratings community: it recommends only from the catalog of the merchant using it and explains each pick. The two serve different purposes, one helping consumers research wines, the other helping one merchant advise its own customers.
Wineater reads the shopper's request, matches it against the merchant's catalog and picks four wines, with a reason for each. It splits the request into food pairing, taste and style, place of origin, occasion and how the wine is made, plus any budget. Every wine in the catalog is described on the same five aspects, so the request is compared aspect by aspect. A language model then selects the four wines and writes the explanations.
Shoppers can write anything in free text: a dish, a budget, an occasion, a style, a region, a grape or a wine they already like. Examples: "something for steak, under 30" or "a birthday gift for a friend who loves wine geekery". If the shopper names a wine type, most of the four picks are of that type. If they type a wine or producer name that exists in the catalog, those exact matches come first.
Yes, a budget can be part of the request, in numbers or in words. Wineater turns phrases such as "cheap", "around 30" or "splurge" into a price range and uses it to guide the selection. Treat it as guidance rather than a strict cap: the price is shown on every card, so shoppers can check it before they click.
Yes. When a request refers to a known wine or producer, Wineater works out that wine's style and origin and looks for wines with a similar profile in the merchant's catalog. It can combine this with a budget, as in "like Barolo, but cheaper". The results are always wines from the catalog, so they are close in style to the reference, not the reference itself.
Yes. Recommendations come only from the catalog of the shop that uses the widget, and the shop is identified by its client token, not by anything the shopper types. Wines marked as out of stock are hidden. Wineater does not draw on the open internet or on other merchants' catalogs when it recommends.
The widget returns up to four wines per search, so the shopper gets a short list instead of a page of results. The four are chosen to play different roles, for example best match, good value, or an alternative from another region, depending on the request. Each comes with a one- or two-sentence explanation in the shop's language, so the shopper knows why it fits. Fewer than four can appear when the catalog has no more good matches.
Yes. After the first four, a "show more" action brings the next four best matches for the same request, leaving out wines already shown. On a wine card, shoppers can also ask for similar wines, based on that wine's taste and food-pairing profile. Prices are not matched exactly. These extra results use a standard short note rather than an individually written reason.
Wineater reads whatever the request does say, such as an occasion, a dish, a style or a budget, and the more detail the shopper gives, the tighter the match. If the shopper asks for a wine the shop does not carry, the nearest matches in the catalog are offered instead. If nothing relevant can be returned, the widget shows a "no results" message; it never invents wines that are not in the catalog.
Recommendations and their explanations are written in the language set for each store, and the widget interface has translations in several languages, including English, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese. The language comes from the store's configuration, not from the shopper's request. Wine names stay as they appear in your catalog. Tell us which language you need when you contact us.
Yes. Shoppers can write their request in any language, and Wineater reads it the same way. We have tried Spanish and German requests on a French-language and an English-language shop, and the wines returned fitted the request. The wines and their explanations come back in the language set for the shop, not in the language the shopper typed. Results in a given language can vary, so ask us to test the languages your shoppers use.
Yes. Each of the four wines has a one- or two-sentence explanation written for that specific request, in the shop's language, such as why it suits a dish or a budget. On desktop the explanation appears when the shopper hovers over the card. Wines shown through the similar-wines action carry a standard short note instead of an individual reason.
Yes. Every wine card has a similar-wines button. One click returns four more wines from the same catalog that are close to that wine in taste and food pairing, and the search box shows which wine they are similar to. The shopper does not need to type anything. Similar wines are not guaranteed to be in the same price range, and they use a standard note rather than an individual explanation.
Yes. A shop can flag selected products as promoted, and promoted products receive a moderate boost in ranking among the candidate wines. They are still weighed against what the shopper asked for, so a promoted wine that does not fit the request is not guaranteed a place in the four picks. To set up promoted products, write to hi@wineater.com.
Wines marked as out of stock are not recommended. If you connect an XML product feed, Wineater checks it once a day and hides wines that are no longer listed, while wines with unknown availability stay visible. Safeguards stop the sync if the feed is empty, has shrunk by half, or would hide more than half of the catalog. Because the sync runs daily, a wine that sells out during the day can still appear until the next run.
Yes. Each vintage is treated as a separate wine, because the vintage is part of the wine's name in the catalog, so the price and availability shown are those of that specific listing. Shoppers can mention a vintage or how old they want the wine to be in their request, and it is read as part of the request like any other detail.
You add one script tag and a container element to your site, together with your store's token, and the widget appears where you place it. Our team gives you the snippet and sets up your catalog first, so you do not configure the AI yourself. If you would rather not use the widget, you can connect through the API or use a QR code.
You can share your catalog as a CSV export, as a product feed (Wineater reads XML feeds in the Google Shopping style) or through an API connection. A basic feed with title, brand, price and link is enough to identify wines: Wineater fills in details such as region, grape and type, and your own data always takes priority over what it adds. Your prices, stock and images remain yours.
Yes. It works with a wine list of a few dozen wines and with a catalog of thousands. In our October 2026 tests on live stores, the median answer took 4.8 seconds with 29 wines, 5.1 with 393, 6.7 with 762 and 5.3 with 3,344 wines in stock. Below 50 wines the whole list is considered; above that, a search first narrows the choice. We have not tested catalogs above 3,344 wines, and we judge relevance by reading results, not with an accuracy score.
Typically about 1 hour for a QR code, about 1 day for the website widget and about 1 week for an API integration. The Wineater team configures your catalog, usually within 24 hours of receiving it. Actual timing depends on the state of your catalog and on your own website team.
Yes. The widget can be configured with your brand colour, logo and styling, and the Wineater team sets this up for you rather than through a self-service editor. The standard widget carries a "Powered by Wineater" line in its footer. If you need a fully branded experience, the API lets you build the interface yourself.
Wineater is not an SEO tool, and we do not claim any effect on search rankings. The widget loads through a script and renders its recommendations in the browser, so they are not part of your page's static HTML. It adds a discovery tool for shoppers who are already on your site and does not change your existing product pages or their URLs.
Yes. The widget has a mobile layout: on desktop, details appear when a shopper hovers over a wine card, and on mobile, tapping a card opens a detail view. A QR-code experience opens from any smartphone camera, with no app to install.
Yes. You print a QR code and place it on tables, menus or near wine shelves. Guests scan it with their phone, describe what they want and get wine suggestions from your list, with no app to install. A QR code is the quickest channel to launch, typically about an hour.
Yes. Wineater has a tablet version for restaurants and bars where guests choose dishes from the menu and get matching wines from your list. It is a recommendation tool only: it has no cart and no payment. Ask us whether it fits your venue.
You send your wine list, for example as a CSV export, and the Wineater team loads it for you. Each wine is matched to a wine record and described on pairing, taste, origin, occasion and production, while your prices and stock stay yours. The widget also has a bar and restaurant mode.
Yes. The widget can label a wine as available by the glass and show a glass price next to it, when that information is included in the wine list data. Tell us which wines you pour by the glass when you send your list.
Yes. The same API that powers the widget can connect Wineater to your own search or recommendation interface. Requests are authenticated with a store token, which also determines your catalog and language. An API integration typically takes about a week. Write to hi@wineater.com to get access.
With the API integration, yes: you build the front end yourself, so nothing from Wineater needs to appear on your site. The standard widget shows a "Powered by Wineater" line and can be styled with your brand colours and logo.
The widget records the text shoppers type and how they interact: searches, results shown, card clicks and BUY clicks, plus basic device details such as screen size and browser language. It sets a random visitor identifier and a session identifier in cookies, and it does not ask shoppers for a name or an email. Because the widget sets cookies on your site, mention it in your own cookie information.
Your catalog is used to power recommendations for your store. Wine-level information such as descriptions, pairing and terroir is shared across stores that list the same wine, while your price, stock and images stay specific to your store. Searches made on another merchant's widget never return your products.
Wineater is operated by BACCHUSTECH OÜ, a company incorporated in Estonia. Search requests require an authentication token, and each store's token limits the service to that store's catalog. The widget asks shoppers for no account details. Our privacy policy explains what we collect, why, and which providers process it. For a data processing agreement or specific hosting questions, write to hi@wineater.com.
Wineater records widget sessions, searches, recommendations shown, wine-card interactions (hover, click and details viewed), show-more and similar-wines clicks, and BUY clicks. A dashboard in the Wineater admin panel shows these events per store. The numbers describe what shoppers do inside the widget; they are not a measure of your store's revenue.
A BUY click is a click on a wine's buy link in the widget, which opens that wine's product page in the shop. It signals purchase interest, but it is not a confirmed purchase: Wineater does not count BUY clicks as sales or orders.
In a one-month pilot, 20%+ of sessions with recommendations ended in a BUY click. A BUY click is a click to the product page, not a purchase. Shoppers sent 2+ requests each on average. This is a small sample, so read it as an indication, not a forecast.
Wineater records the click, not the order, and does not receive order data from your shop. A BUY click opens the product URL stored in your catalog, so the usual route is to tag those URLs, for example with UTM parameters, and follow the resulting visits and orders in your own analytics or e-commerce reports. We can discuss this during setup.
Wineater does not promise a specific increase in sales, conversion or basket size. Results depend on your catalog, your traffic and where the widget is placed. To see what a trial could measure for your shop, book a 20-minute demo or write to hi@wineater.com.
You can start with a 1-month free trial, no credit card required. After the trial, pricing depends on the size of your catalog and on the channel you choose (widget, QR code or API). Write to hi@wineater.com and we will send you a clear quote.
During the month, your catalog and your chosen channel are set up and you can try Wineater with your own wines. No credit card is needed to start. After the month, the price depends on your catalog and channel, and we agree it with you by email. For contract length and cancellation terms, please ask us directly.
The Wineater team does. You share your wine list or product feed, and we load and describe the wines, configure your store and language, and give you the widget snippet or QR code. You do not train or tune the AI yourself. Your part is adding the snippet to your site or printing the QR code.
1-month free trial, no credit card. Pricing depends on catalog size and channel; write to hi@wineater.com.
