Objectifying Wine

When it comes to trying wine, studies have shown that there's a huge psychological component to the experience. For example, if you give people the same wine and change say to some that it's a $90 bottle while to others its a $10 bottle, the wine will be rated more highly if it's given a higher cost. The same white wine dyed to look red will taste sweeter for those who drank the white. Most interesting was a study that found under double-blind trials, general wine drinkers would prefer a cheaper wine to a more expensive one while professional wine drinkers prefer the more expensive but don't notice much of a difference.

When I first heard about how perceived cost can affect quality, I was quite shocked. The next time I went wine tasting I decided to try the wine before looking at how much it cost. One interesting find was a wine I rated really highly (an Otago Pinot Noir) turned out to have a price tag to match. It did make me feel somewhat vindicated that I was getting the quality from the wine, rather than imposing it psychologically.

But upon thinking about it more, the experience of the wine is what is being measured. I can't separate my psychology from the experience, and as much as I like the notion of the wine valuing itself, the reality is that the wine is only part of the experience. There's just no grounds for thinking that the wine itself needs to be the dominant factor. I can understand why people would like it to be, after all the taste and feel of the wine is what seems to be the totality of the experience. But a good wine is necessarily more than that, it's a means to an end and not the end in itself.

Morning Scepticism: Wine Experience

In learning a little about the experience of wine, I've learned that psychology plays a big role in the experience. The perception of quality as indicated by the price can change the experience. That initially got me concerned, and I now whenever possible try to taste a wine without knowing how much it costs. But upon thinking about it, I can't understand why. It shouldn't matter whether the experience of good wine is a psychological trick or something that comes from the way the wine interacts with your senses. Is an experience somehow less significance if its influenced by culture and the desire for status? I'm glad personally that I can get wines I like for about $10-$15 a bottle and I don't think that there's much value in buying more expensive wines. But if people get their pleasure from the status of drinking an expensive wine, I can't see the problem with that. There's no intrinsic value to the wine by which the experience should be judged, the value comes from the perceptual experience - including psychological factors.