The wine delusion

Chen, 2014). Brochet served the same wine disguised in two different bottles, one cheap
and one pricey. Experts praised the wine served from the pricey bottle as ‘excellent’,
‘flavoursome’ and ‘balanced,’ whilst rejecting the wine served from the cheaper bottle as
‘weak’, ‘flat’ and ‘unbalanced’ (Brochet, 2001). Beneath the framing lies a reason,
expectations. Expectations are built into our brain’s tasting gear. People have thousands of
taste buds, which are but blunt instruments. These can tell if something is sweet, sour,
bitter, salty or savoury. Their main purpose is to know what’s edible, not distinguish flavours
(Berdik, 2012). Besides tasting things, people can smell. Smell is the result of our constant
sniffing of thousands of chemical compounds. What people smell is both the anticipation
and fulfillment of a wine’s promise. It is easier to fool the nose than the mouth. The smell
that people know of is the combination of many, many chemicals. There are 213 known
odor compounds in cheddar cheese and 466 in grapes according to Maarse (cited in
Berdik, 2012). People’s reaction to these depend on odor concentration and context. In
one study that tested the same smell, cued with the words ‘cheddar cheese’ or ‘body odor’,
the former was found to be more pleasant. Even in the absence of odor, when prompted
with the same words, people found ‘cheddar cheese’ better (Araujo et al., 2005). The truth
is, people don’t need to overthink about the attributes of a wine to enjoy its flavour or check
if it’s worthy of the price. So, why not disregard flavour specifics and look at taste
preferences?
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