(Roughly) Daily

A new wine delivery service called Vinome is promising to deliver “the ultimate personalized wine experience” — customized to your DNA.

There isn’t much (or, really, any) science to back it up. But it’s got a very big name in its corner. Vinome just inked a deal with a startup called Helix, which in turn is backed by the world’s biggest DNA sequencing company, the powerhouse known as Illumina. For the past 15 years, Illumina has been selling machines that can quickly decode the human genome. Medical researchers around the world use them. But the company wants to conquer the consumer market, too. That’s why it spent $100 million to launch Helix, which teams up with app developers who can find creative ways to use a customer’s genetic data. Such as selling them wine.

For about $65 per bottle, Vinome promises to pick out “great wines that are perfectly paired to you” based on an analysis of 10 genetic variants in your DNA, collected via saliva samples. The company — which is based, of course, in Northern California’s wine country — even incorporated the distinctive double helix of DNA into its logo of a corkscrew.

Medical geneticist Dr. Jim Evans isn’t impressed.  “It’s just completely silly. Their motto of ‘A little science and a lot of fun’ would be more accurately put as ‘No science and a lot of fun,’” said Evans, who’s a professor and researcher at the University of North Carolina. “I’d put this in the same category as DNA matching to find your soulmate,” he said. “We just simply don’t know enough about the genetics of taste to do this on any accurate basis.”…

For more, pop the cork at: “Fruity with a hint of double helix: A startup claims to tailor wine to your DNA.”

And for more on the larger phenomenon of which Vinome is a part, see “‘Personalized nutrition’ isn’t going to solve our diet problems.”

[Image above sourced here]

* K. Lee Lerner

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As we ponder personalization, we might recall that today is International Merlot Day.  As Wine Cellar Insider observes…

When asked for the most widely planted grape in Bordeaux , many wine lovers would say Cabernet Sauvignon. That is not the case. There are more hectares devoted to Merlot than any other grape in Bordeaux. To give you an idea on how much Merlot is planted in Bordeaux, close to 62% of all vines in Bordeaux are Merlot taking up about 69,138 hectares. Cabernet Sauvignon is a distant second with about 25% of the region’s planting’s totaling close to 28,347 hectares.

Merlot is not only popular in Bordeaux. In fact, it’s the most widely planted grape in France! Merlot is also successfully planted in Switzerland, Australia, Argentina and numerous other countries, as well as in America…

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