The Origin
Joy Cork started as an exploration of the wine industry. I’ve been talking to winery owners and trying to understand their pain points. Two distinct problems emerged:
- Customer engagement — How do wineries connect with customers between visits?
- Email overload — How do wineries make sense of what their competitors are doing?
This project tackles the first problem: an AI-powered chatbot that helps customers discover wines and plan visits.
How It Works
The chatbot uses Claude to have natural conversations about wine preferences, then maps those to specific wines in the winery’s inventory. It can:
- Answer questions about specific wines
- Recommend wines based on food pairings
- Help customers plan tasting room visits
- Capture leads and booking requests
The Challenge
Building a chatbot that feels helpful without being annoying is hard. The wine industry has a lot of jargon, and customers range from complete beginners to sommeliers.
I’m exploring how to make the AI knowledgeable but not pretentious, helpful but not pushy.
What’s Next
- Pilot with 2-3 local wineries
- Fine-tune recommendations based on actual sales data
- Add SMS and WhatsApp channels
- Build the white-label platform for wine marketing agencies