Winebits 832: AI, higher taxes, counterfeit wine

This week’s wine news: Our jobs are safe from AI, plus a call for higher booze taxes and yet another high-end wine theft

• “Our jobs are safe”: This is the sort of “Aren’t I clever writer” story that I usually ignore, full of bad jokes and worse puns and that wanders around the point. But since it’s about AI and chatbots and all the rest, it’s worth mentioning. The gist, as near as I can tell, is that anyone who works in the “drinks” business won’t be replaced by smarmy computers, since the computers aren’t as good at our jobs as we are. Although, and again, it’s difficult to tell, the “drinks” business does want to replace us with a smarmy computer since we cost more money.

• Higher taxes: The news that the World Health Organization is calling for higher taxes on alcohol isn’t new, but I wanted to mention it because WHO has lumped wine, spirits, and beer with the Big Gulp. It wants higher taxes on soft drinks, too. Which, if you think about it, is brilliant marketing. There is nothing redeeming — culturally, socially, or health-wise — about sugary soft drinks, so the proposal implies that wine and the rest in moderation are just as evil and terrible for us, even though there is no evidence that is true. Is it any wonder the neo-Prohibitionists have the wine business on the run?

• More fake wine: Chinese authorities have dismantled an elaborate fake wine operation in Beijing that counterfeited specific vintages of high-end wine on demand. Reports vino-joy.com: The group would purchase empty high-end wine bottles for as much as RMB 500 each (US$70.5), fill them with wines costing around RMB 300 and sell them for more than RMB 1,000 a bottle. That’s a nearly 90 percent discount over what the wines should cost. The story says police were surprised that the gang would take advance orders for the fake wines, “a significant departure from traditional mass production of counterfeit wines.”