from the Chicago Tribune

Flavored wine should be stopped dead before it trends

Despite at least one winery's suggestion that flavored wine could become a trend and then be widely accepted, as other flavored beverages have, I think flavored wine will always be an aberration, and the companies that manufacture it will always be outsiders — like artificial intelligence robots are now. We can do it — we can make machines that think like us, look like us and move like us. But why is that better than us being us? Will it be a good thing if there is one of them for every one of us? We can custom-flavor all of our wine too. We can make it nacho-flavored if we want. But why would we? Why should we?

We love wine because it represents some degree of miracle every time it comes into being. With its wide range of flaws, shortcomings and transcendence, it is, in its essence, perfect just the way it is. And the robots can't have any. It's ours, and we're not sharing it — not with robots, or even with fruits other than grapes, or hot peppers, or cake and ice cream. At least I'm not.