Sommo: The Super-Powered Wine App with Creator Gökhan Arkan

Podcast EpisodesWine EducationWine Industrywine tipsWine Apps and ToolsSip With Nikki The Tasting Room

Jun 9

Written By Nicole Lamberti

Meet the SOMMO App

A conversation with Gökhan Arkan, the London-based software engineer who built an AI-powered wine app that actually learns your palate.

Learn more about what this Super-powered app can do for you! (and download it too!)

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Episode Notes:

There are wine apps, and then there's SOMMO. When Gökhan Arkan first reached out to me, I'll be honest — I was skeptical. I've been a loyal Vivino fan for years, and I figured, what could a new app really add to that? Well. After about five minutes in the free version, I was texting Gökhan back and telling him we had to talk.

Because what he's built? It doesn't just tell you about wine. It learns you.

From Istanbul to London — and a Very Relatable Problem

Gökhan is originally from Istanbul, currently based in London, and (at the time of our recording) was traveling through Hong Kong — which is why we were on a call at 6:30am my time. He came to wine about five years ago, largely through frequent work trips to Paris and a French co-founder who always seemed to pick the perfect bottle.

"Whenever I picked something, it was always bad," he told me. "Whenever he picked something, it was always good. I thought — how do I record this?"

That question became the seed for SOMMO.

As a software engineer with a background in AI (he's also doing research at Oxford University on knowledge graphs, no big deal), Gökhan's instinct was to look at wine as a data problem. Not to standardize it — but to personalize it. Because taste isn't a fixed point. It's a curve. It changes by season, by mood, by culture, by experience. And no crowdsourced database can capture that the way a tool that specifically learns your palate can.

What Makes SOMMO Different

I've talked about Vivino on this podcast plenty of times, and I still think it's great — but SOMMO does something fundamentally different. Where Vivino aggregates crowd-sourced ratings, SOMMO builds a personalized profile of you.

No ads. No sponsored placements. No "buy this wine now" pop-ups. Just your wine life, organized and getting smarter every time you use it.

Here's what impressed me most:

The Scan Function — Way Beyond a Label Yes, you can scan a bottle label like you can in Vivino. But SOMMO also lets you scan a restaurant wine list (including from a website — I tested this from home the night before our interview) and tell it what you're planning to eat. It pulls from your personal taste profile and recommends wines from that specific menu that are right for both the food and for you. You can also scan an entire shelf in a wine shop — Gökhan scanned about 100 bottles in a single photo and got results back in under 10 seconds.

The Tasting Journal This is where the personalization magic lives. Every wine you rate — whether it's a simple "love it / would buy again / did not like" or a detailed WSET-style tasting note — feeds the app's understanding of your palate. Over time, it builds what SOMMO calls your taste fingerprint: a visual map of where you land on the spectrum of acidity, tannin, body, sweetness, and even adventure (yes, adventure is on the map, and I love that).

The Wine Character Reading After I'd entered about 20 wines, SOMMO gave me my wine character. I'm going to share it here because it floored me: "You are a discerning explorer who balances a love for crisp, high-acid Italian whites with a deep appreciation for the structured elegance of California reds. You clearly value wines that offer a clean, bone-dry finish, showing a consistent preference for precision over sweetness in every glass."

And my wine spirit animal? The Lynx. Sharp-eyed and agile, you effortlessly navigate between delicate high-acid wines and bold, silky reds with grace.

I mean. Drop the mic.

The Education Layer SOMMO isn't just a tracking tool — it's a learning tool. There are wine courses built in, from beginner Wine 101 all the way through WSET Level 2 and Level 3 prep, with AI-driven quizzes that identify your weak spots and build study plans around them. For the casual wine drinker who just wants to feel more confident in a shop, or the student working toward their sommelier certification, the app meets you exactly where you are.

SOMMO in a Tasting Setting — This Is Where I Got Emotional (I know, you’re not surprised…)

I'm not going to pretend I didn't tear up a little during this part of the conversation. Here's why.

You've heard me teasing the launch of Sip with Nikki: The Tasting Room — my upcoming virtual wine membership where I ship curated tasting kits from Vinebox (those beautiful 100ml wine vials) directly to your door, and then we taste together on Zoom every other month.

One of the things I'd been wrestling with was: how do my members keep track of all the wines we taste together? Do I build a digital journal? Commission a PDF template? Hire a designer?

And then Gökhan shows me the tasting mode in SOMMO.

Members can scan the flight — or in our case, the tasting mat that comes in each Vinebox kit — and SOMMO generates swipe-style cards for each wine. Quick, easy, minimal screen time so you're still present in the experience. You note whether you loved it, hated it, would buy it again. The AI then analyzes the session and can even give you a personalized ranking of everything you tasted. All of it feeds your palate profile, which keeps getting sharper.

I tested scanning the first tasting mat from our inaugural kit, and it worked beautifully. It pulled every wine right in.

The tool I'd been trying to build from scratch? Already exists. I could have cried. (I kind of did.)

A Note on AI — Because It Deserves One

I know AI is a charged topic right now. I want to be clear: nothing in SOMMO is meant to replace the magic of a great sommelier. When you're in a restaurant with a knowledgeable somm who has tasted every bottle on that list and knows your style after a two-minute conversation — that's irreplaceable. I hope that experience lives on forever.

But you don't always have that person with you. You're standing in the wine shop, or pulling something from your fridge on a Tuesday night, or sitting at a restaurant with a three-page wine list and a server who's more focused on the specials. That's where SOMMO becomes your pocket sommelier. It's not competing with the human experience. It's filling in the gaps.

An Exciting Offer for The Tasting Room Founding Members

Here's the news I'm thrilled to share: Gökhan is gifting one free year of SOMMO Premium (a $30 value) to every founding member of Sip with Nikki: The Tasting Room.

That means when you join the membership, you get the tasting kits, the live virtual tastings with me, the private community — and a full year of SOMMO Premium already unlocked so you can track every wine we taste together, build your palate profile, and explore on your own in between our sessions.

The timing of Gökhan finding me — right as I was about to launch — felt like the universe sending me exactly what I needed. I'm so grateful, and I can't wait for you to experience it.

Where to Find SOMMO

Download the SOMMO app from the App Store or Google Play. Start with the free version and poke around — you'll be impressed quickly. The premium subscription is $30/year and unlocks the full experience.

And if you're not already on the list for The Tasting Room, head here my websiteand sign up for the mailing list. You'll be the first to know when the doors open.

Whatever you do between now and our next time together — sip well.

🍷It's Finally Happening: Sip with Nikki :The (Virtual) Tasting Room

Okay. Here's the big one.

I've been talking about this for a long time, and I'm finally doing it. I'm launching a virtual tasting room membership — and I want your input before it goes live this summer.

Here's the concept: members will join me on Zoom for regular live tastings of wines from around the world. I'm partnering with a company called Vinebox, which makes curated wine tasting kits featuring 100ml vials — almost like a large test tube of wine. That's a real, generous tasting pour, and it means we don't have to open five full bottles at once. I'll customize boxes that I'll send to members ahead of each tasting, so we're all sipping the same wine at the same time, together, live.

What excites me most about this isn't just the wine — it's the community. After 100+ episodes of podcasting, I love what I do, but it's a one-way conversation. The tasting room means I get to see you, hear your questions, answer them in real time, and watch you discover a wine you've never tried before. That's the whole point.

Membership will include the curated tasting kits, access to our live virtual sessions, and other perks and resources I'm building in to help you develop your palate, get out of your comfort zone, and explore wine regions you might never have tried on your own.

And this is where I need you. I'm literally pulling this together right now, in May 2026. Before I finalize everything and put it out into the world, I want to know: what do you want from this membership? What wines, what regions, what format, what perks would make you actually excited to join?

Email me: nikki@sipwithnikki.com. I'm all ears.

If you're not already on my mailing list, go to sipwithnikki.com and sign up — that's where all the details about the membership, pricing, and launch will go out first. You'll also get my downloadable wine tips cheat sheet as a welcome gift (it includes tips like everything I covered today on temperature).

Before You Go: A Few Sips of Summer from Sollevato

If you're looking for wine to kick off the season, I have just a couple of cases left of my first-ever Sollevato rosé — a Grenache with a kiss of Sangiovese. It's dry but fruity, light, crisp, and honestly tastes like a summer sunset in a glass. People are loving it.

I also have my 2023 Sangiovese (perfect for pizza night) and the red Grenache, which is gorgeous slightly chilled and pairs beautifully with spicy food like tacos.

Visit sollevatowines.com and use codePODLISTENER for 10% off. We ship to most states.