Wine psychology: basic & applied

Abstract

Basic cognitive research can help to explain our response to wine, and the myriad factors that affect it. Wine is a complex, culture-laden, multisensory stimulus, and our perception/experience of its properties is influenced by everything from the packaging in which it is presented through the glassware in which it is served and evaluated. A growing body of experiential wine research now demonstrates that a number of contextual factors, including everything from the colour of the ambient lighting through to background music can exert a profound, and in some cases predictable, influence over the tasting experience. Sonic seasoning-that is, the matching of music or soundscapes with specific wines in order to accentuate or draw attention to certain qualities/attributes in the wine, such as sweetness, length, or body, also represents a rapidly growing area of empirical study. While such multisensory, experiential wine research undoubtedly has a number of practical applications, it also provides insights concerning multisensory perception that are relevant to basic scientists. Furthermore, the findings of the wine research are also often relevant to those marketers interested in understanding how the consumers' perception of any other food or beverage product can potentially be modified.

Do metallic-coated cups affect the perception of specialty coffees? An exploratory study

“…One might expect that experts would be somewhat less likely to be influenced by extrinsic cues or alteration of intrinsic cues (e.g., wine colouring), at least within their area of expertise. However, several studies indicate this does not necessarily appear to be the case (Spence, 2020b). Our results on the bronze cup affecting the experts' ratings of sweetness may be taken to suggest that the professionals, who have been trained to identify and verbally report flavour sensations, would be more attuned to subtle differences in flavour attributes and more susceptible to product-extrinsic influences (Hughson & Boakes, 2001;Carvalho et al, 2020).…”

“…Being an agricultural product originating from a certain terroir, processed and roasted according to different methods, coffee can reach a huge variation of characteristics in terms of aroma and flavour complexity (Fisk, Kettle, Hofmeister, Virdie, & Kenny, 2012;Schwan, Silva, & Batista, 2012). Given that different styles/varieties of specialty coffee have different dominant/desirable qualities (e.g., acidity/sweetness), the challenge is to optimize the design of the receptacle in order to enhance the multisensory tasting experience for the end consumer, much as seen in the world of fine wine Spence, 2020b). The cup in which the coffee is served is increasingly coming to be considered as an essential element in terms of turning the consumption of specialty coffee into a truly engaging multisensory experience (i.e., and moving it beyond being considered as little more than a hot beverage).…”

The power of Dionysus—Effects of red wine on consciousness in a naturalistic setting

“…One particular characteristic is music. Background music can affect the taste of wine [ 14 ] and increase the pleasantness of the taste experience leading to enhanced appreciation of the holistic dining experience [ 10 , 61 ] Additionally, compared to a pop music background, a classical music background influenced costumers to purchase more expensive wines in a wine store [ 62 ] and to spend more in a restaurant [ 61 ]. North and colleagues explained their findings by the upmarket atmosphere of classical music inducing the congruent behavior of spending more [ 61 ].…”

“…The hedonistic nature of red wine involves the indulgence of the senses in wine products and in the esthetic framework of the wine landscape, which encompasses wine bars [ 12 ]. In addition, red wine is the most studied alcoholic beverage regarding the cognitive and perceptual factors that affect how it tastes [ 13 , 14 ]. The extensive research on factors influencing taste contrasts markedly with the dearth of research on pleasant altered states of consciousness induced by moderate doses of red wine, especially from a first-person introspective perspective [ 15 ].…”

Commercializing Sonic Seasoning in Multisensory Offline Experiential Events and Online Tasting Experiences

“…Over the last few years, sonic seasoning (grounded in the crossmodal correspondences) has been incorporated into a number of multisensory experiential tasting events, building on the growing interest in “sensploration” (e.g., Leow, 2015 ; Spence, 2019b ). The latter term refers to people’s growing fascination with, and openness to, multisensory experiential events, as evidenced by the phenomenal popularity of activations like The Singleton Sensorium ( Velasco et al, 2013 ), or the Tate Sensorium (see Pursey and Lomas, 2018 ; Spence, 2020e , for reviews). Sensploration has been especially popular amongst younger consumers (e.g., millennials and centennials/GenZ; see Birkner, 2016 ; Xiong et al, 2016 ).…”