Wine and "The Placebo Effect" and "Experienced Pleasantness"

I have no doubt that there is a placebo effect related to wine tasting and that many people fall victim to this including myself.

It is worth reading the controversial articles below. I have been at wine tastings where the tasters have almost refused to believe that a wine was faulty. The wine in question was a Bollinger Vintage Champagne: there was nothing wrong with the wine when it was put in the bottle but the cork was faulty and the wine therefore had the bitter and earthy taste of a corked wine. I was on a wine course and  many of the students refused to accept that such an expensive wine could be at fault.  To me and some of my fellow students the wine tasted spoilt and eventually we were able to convince the rest that the wine was in fact spoilt. We had to make allowance for some of the tasters who were completely insensitive to the taste of "corked" wine.

There have been many experiments performed where tasters were asked to identify a particular wine or type of grape or to be able to differentiate between white wine and red wine at a blind tasting. It seems that it is much more difficult to assess a wine when you cannot see its colour  or see the label.

Scientists have also put red dye into white wine and asked the tasters to describe the wine. Often the tasters describe red wine tastes.

It is quite easy to fool the most experienced tasters and even Masters of Wine, heaven forbid, at a blind tasting. Experienced pleasantness is a phenomenon which is easily influenced by the mind's eye - we often assume that a product is better because it costs more.

Price is also an influential factor apart from brand name. The students tasting the Bollinger were unable to accept that such an expensive wine could taste so awful. Unfortunately the fungus that causes wine taste does not recognise price, reputation or brand name; it acts just like the flu virus.

Top price wines with a particular brand name may not be in fact be top quality wines. We must all beware of the placebo effect and keep our feet on the ground when describing wine and its quality. We must also not become wine snobs and dismiss cheaper brands. Blind tasting is a great equaliser.

Our sense of taste and smell can easily be influenced by the suggestion of others and our beliefs for we are not completely rational. I have often been influenced by others at a tasting into ignoring my initial impressions. Quite often, as a naïve student, I have  tasted or smelt none of the fruit or floral flavours that my fellow tasters were describing but I have written down that I have actually tasted such flavours - all in a kind of King's New Clothes effect. I have known better for years not to fall for it.

All is not lost , however, the other night my wife described the taste of a red wine exactly as the producers had described it on the rear of the bottle. My wife could not have read the description prior to the tasting and she could not have known what wine I was going to pull from the rack before I opened it - this is good tasting indeed and she hasn't passed any wine exams.

Identifying a good wine is not just about tastes and fruit flavours. We need to asses the wine for its acidity, sweetness, tannin, concentration and complexity and its length on the palate and how well the wine is balanced. You may think that the placebo effect is too simple to affect our judgement of all this - not so.

You may ask what is the point of wine tasting and buying good wine or even studying it?. Well it gives great pleasure to many. Many people have found pain relief from the placebo effect in medicine. So the placebo effect does help to make life better. However, we should be aware of the dangers when something is marketed to be what it is not especially if money is tight. You should also be aware of the placebo effect when invited to a tasting as part of a wine investment promotion.

Despite all, you can imagine how good I feel when I can identify a wine blind, even though this rarely happens, but no placebo effect here. This skill can be learnt to some extent but familiarity helps. At a blind tasting in England my wife was easily able to pick out the English sparkling wine from the Champagne. Being born in the region helps as she has been familiar with and drinking Champagne wine for years.

http://palatepress.com/2009/10/wine/the-placebo-effect-and-wine/

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/3/1050.full

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/baba-shiv-how-wines-price-tag-affect-its-taste

It is not just wine enthusiasts who can be fooled by the placebo effect. I was once in a cosmetic shop in France with my wife who bought some face cream, which was being marketed on the basis that after application, of the magical potion, one's face would defy the laws of gravity and all the crinkles would disappear. The shop assistant could not understand why I laughed. When we left the shop I mused that Isaac Newton would be laughing too; my wife explained that despite all this the cream made her feel better. Perhaps, this is what life is all about.

It is not just women who fall for this sort of marketing. One of my other interests is Hi-Fi which is a past time dominated by men. Some "audiophile" enthusiasts believe that paying more is better. They even believe that electrons flow through wires better when they are connected up in a certain way, and the manufacturers have put arrows on the cables to show which way round they should go. Think about it for a few seconds, they actually believe that this improves the sound and they actually hear the difference. Of course it is only cables which costs hundreds of pounds per metre which react in this way. Your average electron from Maplins  knows nothing about this and just flows from negative to positive polarity. Just like cork taint fungus electrons do not recognise cost or brand name and reputation.

Lots "audiophiles" spend all their money on such frippery and some of them get themselves into debt trouble - all as a result of the placebo effect: I hope some of them have got some money left to spend on a decent bottle of wine.

http://coconut-audio.com/rcainterconnects.html