Hospitality judgment
Reading rooms, guests, teams, margin, and the small signals that decide whether a night works.
About
A sommelier who learned to code.
Woody Wu is a sommelier and hospitality operator in Western Canada.
Or an operator who never stopped tasting. The order depends on the hour.
He holds dual WSET and ISG diplomas, imports grower Champagne and small-farm wines, and builds the software he wishes the industry had.
I have built my career on the floor: opening rooms, building lists, losing and learning from restaurants, advising collectors, and translating wine into decisions people can actually use.
Manifesto
Nostalgia is the new luxury. Pain is the new proof. Taste is the last instrument.
The writing on this site is about the distinction between consuming and tasting, between content and memory, between what machines can generate and what a body has to earn.
After service, I build software. The House Somm is the live proof: an AI sommelier for restaurants built from the judgment of a working sommelier, not from a generic menu prompt.
Wine and memory
Bottles as culture, inventory, agriculture, trust, and sometimes the most honest thing at the table.
Machines after service
AI and software as leverage for operators, not theater for people who have never closed a restaurant.
FAQ
Three questions, answered plainly
Who is Woody Wu?
Woody Wu is a sommelier, hospitality operator, wine importer, and AI builder in Western Canada. He runs a dining room by night, imports grower Champagne and small-farm wines, and writes The Floor and the Terminal, a publication on wine, service, and what machines change about taste.
What is The Floor and the Terminal?
A publication in three rooms. The Floor teaches pressure: how great service actually works. The Cellar teaches taste: wine without the gatekeeping. The Terminal teaches leverage: what AI really does in hospitality, from someone who builds with it nightly.
What does "tasted, never swallowed" mean?
Woody is a sober sommelier. He tastes dozens of wines a week professionally and swallows none of them. The phrase became the brand's thesis: you can hold deep knowledge of a thing without consuming it, and the knowing is the valuable part.