Does price influence perception?
Study shows the brain is swayed by cost
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I often ask guests to give me an opinion about a series of wines I pour. They can see whether the wines are red or white, but beyond that they don’t know their grape variety or cost. It’s the fairest way for people to identify a wine they like without regard to anything but what’s in their mouth. Rarely do I hear someone prefer an expensive wine. However, once the wines and their costs are reviewed, converts emerge. The expensive wines are the first to be emptied.
Do people assume an expensive wine is good and a cheap wine poor?
A 2018 study by the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University says “yes.”
Antonio Rangel, a Caltech assistant professor, said prices alone impact an area of the brain that encodes pleasant experiences. His research was based on a study of 20 volunteers who evaluated $5, $10, $35, $45 and $90 wines identified by their cost. During the tastings their brains were scanned by fMRI. The tasters consistently chose the $90 wine.
However, there was a catch. Although they were told there would be five different wines, there were only three. Two bottles were used twice but labeled with different prices. Participants loved the $90 wine—but not the same wine when it was priced $10.
As a follow-up, the tasters were asked to rate the wines without being provided any price information. They then chose the cheapest wine. The study doesn’t answer the question “why,” but I’ll offer some possible reasons. Young, expensive red wines are often tannin and tannin is bitter to most people. A cheaper wine isn’t aged or fermented in oak, so it has a smoother texture. That’s why producers often add concentrated grape syrup to cheap wines: they create a sweet, smooth wine that most wine consumers enjoy despite their frequent denials. Cheap wines simple show well on release.
Although white wines don’t have much tannin, they can have a lot of acidity. An expensive white Burgundy is balanced, with a dash of oak but lots of depth and finesse. Their quality and expense isn’t quite so obvious. Cheap pinot grigio, on the other hand, has oodles of flavor—the kind that clobbers you over the head.
Even without the benefit of technical brain scanning gear, I have seen the same results in private tastings. At restaurants, diners often choose a more expensive wine with anticipation of a better experience when the cheaper wine would be equally satisfying.
Would I, a more educated taster, be equally fooled? I have embarrassed myself often enough to know better than predict my tasting savvy. However, it’s not hard to separate a tannic, full-bodied and complex wine from one that has no depth or character. The former is usually more expensive—but not necessarily. I’ve tasted some mighty tannic wines from South America that are relatively inexpensive.
What are your experiences?