If you are told a wine is expensive, it tastes better, scientists say
It’s something that many of us have suspected – just being told that a wine is expensive tricks people into thinking it tastes better, according to a new study.
It’s the reason marketing tricks – such as using a ‘posh’ label – work so well, researchers believe.
Researchers asked volunteers to lie in an MRI scanner while small measures of wine were poured into their mouths – with prices ranging from around £3 a bottle to £16 a bottle displayed in front of their eyes.
In reality, the samples were all the same wine – a decent vintage costing around £11.
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The researchers from INSEAD Business School and the University of Bonn found that the 30 volunteers rated the wine as tasting better if they were told it was more expensive.
Professor Bernd Weber, lead author of the study, said: ‘The marketing placebo effect has its limits: If, for example, a very low-quality wine is offered for €100 (£90), the effect would predictably be absent.’
‘The reward and motivation system is activated more significantly with higher prices and apparently increases the taste experience in this way.’
‘The exciting question is now whether it is possible to train the reward system to make it less receptive to such placebo marketing effects.’
