The more expensive a wine is, the more pleasure a drinker may get from it, showed a study by researchers of California Institute of Technology as quoted by media reports Tuesday.
Antonio Rangel and his colleagues at the institute labeled three types of Cabernet Sauvignons with five different prices and asked 20 people to taste and judge which one tasted the best. The participants' brain activities were monitored with MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging).
The testers rated the US$5 wine as better than any of the others sampled before they were told the price, but their brains displayed more pleasure at the higher price than the lower one, even for the same wine after the wines were identified with different price.
"Our results suggest that the brain might compute experienced pleasantness in a much more sophisticated manner that involves integrating the actual sensory properties of the substance being consumed with the expectations about how good it should be," the researchers reported.
In other words, no matter how good a cheap wine may taste, consumers will still likely choose the more expensive wine and believe it tastes better.
