A post did the rounds on Threads. “BREAKING: Claude has a feature called Wine Mode.” Six prompts underneath it, and you buy wine without pretending.
I happen to sit where you can check both halves of that claim. I work with Claude every day. In the evenings I write about wine at VinoVonk. The prompts work. The feature does not exist.
There is no Wine Mode
Claude has no hidden mode. No switch, no wine database that wakes up at the word chardonnay. What the post calls Wine Mode is a role plus context. You say who the model should be, what you already drink, what your budget is and what you want out of it. That is what any usable prompt does.
That does not make it less valuable. My objection is the packaging. If you believe it comes down to a magic phrase, you copy the magic phrase and skip your own context. The context is the entire point.
What the post gets right: wine is a subject that makes people feel stupid fast. The fact that the post travelled so far says enough. A model that answers the same question three times without sighing genuinely helps there.
The six prompts, rewritten
Below are my versions, with what I would miss if I used them to buy an actual bottle.
1. Switching it on. Say what you dislike as well. Dislike is more precise than preference. It saves you four bottles that end up half full at the back of the fridge.
You explain wine without showing off. I know very little about it.
What I usually drink: [fill in]. What I really don't like: [fill in].
Budget per bottle: [fill in]. Where I shop: [supermarket / wine shop / online].
Only explain what I need in order to choose. No history lesson.2. The cheat sheet. Six things to pick a bottle in thirty seconds. Force it to stick to what is actually printed on the label where you live.
Give me the 6 things I can check in a shop in 30 seconds to pick a good bottle.
Base it only on what appears on the label or the shelf in [country].
For each point: what it means, and which signal I should ignore.3. The match. This is where the original breaks first. A food pairing without season and serving temperature is half an answer. Serve a white at 18°C in July and it tastes broad and sweet; at 14°C the same bottle stands up straight.
I'm cooking [dish] for [occasion], the season is [season].
Give me 2 options: a safe one and one that stretches me a little.
For each, give the serving temperature and whether to open it early or decant.
Say which element in the dish makes the match: fat, acid, sweetness or spice.4. Tasting. The original asks how to describe wine without sounding like an idiot. Wrong order. I learned to taste with the glass in front of me and the label out of sight. What you notice comes first. The words come after, and they matter less.
Teach me to taste in four steps: colour, nose, palate, finish.
For each step give me one concrete question to ask myself and what to look for.
No flowery descriptions, just what I can observe.
Then ask me what I tasted and help me find words for it.5. Next to your usual bottle. This one pays off most, as long as you force it to wines you can actually buy. I also ask what is unusual about them. A grape you have never heard of, or a producer working organically, that is where it gets interesting.
I always buy the same thing: [fill in]. Give me 5 wines just next to it,
from "almost the same" to "a real step".
Only wines I can buy in [country], in shops or online.
For each: what the jump is compared to what I drink now, whether there is
something unusual about the grape or the producer, and whether the price
matches what I get for it.6. The gift. Add whether the bottle should be opened now or can wait. That saves a miss.
I need a bottle for [person and occasion], budget [amount].
It should look thoughtful without looking expensive.
Tell me whether to open it now or let it rest,
and give me one sentence to say about it without wine jargon.Why a model is good at this
Wine advice from people is rarely free. The shop sells what is on the shelf. The friend who knows wine recommends their own taste. So do I: I mostly write about sparkling wine and about growers working organically, and that colours what I suggest.
A model has no stock and no margin. It repeats itself without impatience. That is exactly what someone needs right after admitting they don’t really like red wine.
What it can’t do
The model does not taste. It does not know that the harvest was poor at that producer that year, or that the batch on the shelf here comes from a different cellar than last year’s. It does not know your rack. And it will invent a vintage or an importer if you don’t ask. With a producer you know you catch it. With one you don’t know, you swallow it.
There is also a direction in it that bothers me, and that is my main objection. Ask a model for suggestions and you get a list. One more bottle, one more region. My starting point runs the other way: drink less, choose better. One bottle you understand says more than six you tried because a chat window named them. So read the list as reading material. Take one of them to the till.
And what you type goes to a company. Your taste, your budget, who you are buying for. Not a disaster, but it is more than you tell the person in the shop. Fill in what the answer needs, no more.
Take prompt 2 into the shop with you. Check the six points at the shelf and buy the bottle you understand. What happens in the glass after that is what I write about at VinoVonk.