What Sommo Cannot Know

The best methodology pages spend as much ink on what a model cannot know as on what it can. So does this one. I build Sommo to be genuinely useful, which means being genuinely honest about its edges. Here they are, in plain sight.

AI is guidance, not oracle

Sommo is a very well-read assistant, not an infallible one. It can sharpen your choice, explain a region, and point you at the right bottle far faster than you could alone. It cannot taste your specific bottle, on this night, with this meal, through your palate. Always trust your own glass over the app. The recommendation is a starting point; you are the judge.

Grounding has edges

Every recommendation is checked against a hand-maintained library of real wines, which is why Sommo does not invent estates. But grounding is not omniscience: a brand-new grower, a tiny négociant bottling, or a label that exists nowhere in the data is a genuine edge case. When Sommo cannot ground a name, it is built to say it is unsure rather than fabricate one. I argued the wider point in the truth about AI wine apps, and the mechanics are on the label scanning page.

Drinking windows are estimates

A drinking window is a forecast, and forecasts carry assumptions:

• The baseline assumes good, stable storage it cannot actually see.
• Each bottle has a storage setting (standard, verified ideal, cold, warm, fluctuating, unknown history or compromised), and any setting other than standard or verified ideal shifts its window. The setting is user-supplied context, with possible gaps before and after purchase.
• Your taste for younger or older wine may differ from the baseline. Once you have rated at least 3 vintage wines of the same grape as Solid Choice or Would Buy Again, windows for that grape can shift by up to 2 years; until then, sparse history means no personal adjustment.
• It cannot foresee a faulty cork ending a bottle early.

Read the adjusted window as a bounded estimate using recorded context, alongside its confidence. It cannot measure past storage, establish the condition of an individual bottle, undo heat damage or guarantee maturity. A wide window with low confidence makes uncertainty visible; it is a reason to taste and keep notes rather than trust a precise date.

Scanning has blind spots

Label scanning is strong on clear front labels of wines that exist in the library. It struggles with damaged or stained labels, very obscure producers, non-vintage bottles, and non-Latin or heavily stylised scripts. In every one of those, a blank is the honest answer where a guess would be the dishonest one.

WSET grading is a study aid

The typed WSET grading marks free-text answers like an examiner and is a powerful way to practise. It is not the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, does not certify you, and does not register you for a sitting. It makes the studying far more effective; it does not replace the official course or qualification.

Not a social network

Sommo is a notebook, not a feed. There are no followers, no public ratings, no leaderboards. If you want a crowd-sourced popularity score, apps like Vivino and Delectable are built for exactly that. Sommo deliberately is not: it learns from your journal, not the crowd’s, which is a strength for personalisation and a non-feature if community is what you are after.

Native, done well

Sommo is native on iPhone, iPad, Android, and HarmonyOS, the Android app a true port rather than a web wrapper, now on Google Play. It is built by one person, so each platform ships only when it is genuinely good: the same wine-tuned AI, the full cellar and menu scoring, built to feel right on each device. The web app at web.sommo.app carries the same account into the browser. The HarmonyOS app is available on Huawei AppGallery, including in the UK and US. It includes cellar keeping, Score Menu, tasting parties and WSET Levels 1 to 4.

Why I write this down

A tool you can trust is one that tells you where it stops. None of the above is hidden in a settings menu or a terms page; it is here, on the same site that markets the app, because that is what honest looks like. If anything here changes, this page changes with it.

Frequently asked.