The Less You know, the Less You'll Spend

Do more expensive wines taste better? This was the question posed in a recent fascinating study on the perception of wine quality carried out by the American Association of Wine Economists. Once you finish chuckling about the fact that such as organization actually exists, check out the results - they may save you a lot of doug

The abstract of this very erudite and official-looking paper says: "[non-expert] Individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine". In other words, dummy up. The more you know about wine, the more money you will have to spend to get your kicks.

The study considered over 6,000 blind tastings conducted mainly with individuals with little wine knowledge. Wines ranged in price from $1.65 to $150 per bottle. The conclusions drawn from the data clearly suggest that "individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines slightly less", when they are unaware of the value of the wine they are tasting.

The results also show, however, that the few wine-savvy individuals in the study were not so easily amused. "Our data also indicates that experts, unlike non-experts, on average assign as high or higher ratings to more expensive wines."The important, if hardly radical new discovery is that price seems to override sensory perception. In other words, price and packaging are as important, if not more, than what the juice actually tastes like.

Furthermore, in certain studies when tasters were given prices, both fictitious and real, attached to certain samples (i.e. participants were given a $150 bottle and informed that is costs less than $10 and vice versa), "Prices are found to correlate positively with experienced pleasantness." In simple terms, more expensive wines translates to more pleasure for the beholder.

I can add anecdotal evidence that when pouring wine blind for friends I often get a negative reaction until I reveal the (high priced) bottle. Suddenly the wine starts to grow on them...it is certainly true that more expensive wines do not often have the sort of immediate and easy appeal of so-called commercial brands, those that are expressly designed to appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

Great wines also go through awkward phases of development and when young can be downright tannic and unpleasant to drink. It does take a bit of knowledge and experience to see these wines in the context of the pleasure they may provide in the future.

For the moment my advice is simple, and maybe even heretical: for your non-expert wine friends, take a cheap bottle, pour it into a stylish decanter and then serve it in fine crystal stemware without failing to mention that it is a special, high priced bottle. They will love it.