Expensive wine tastes better?
January 15, 2008
Picked up from Reuters:
The more wine costs, the more people enjoy it, regardless of how it tastes, a study by California researchers has found.
Researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Institute of Technology found that because people expect wines that cost more to be of higher quality, they trick themselves into believing the wines provide a more pleasurable experience than less expensive ones.
I think this would probably apply to all items, no? It’s why Mac people love their Macs as much as they do, right? :) What *wasn’t* mentioned in the article (or I’m just blind as a bat - has happened recently!) is whether *paying* for the expensive wine made it taste better, or if it was just knowing the price. I suspect it was just knowing the price. In fact, having to *pay* for a $100 bottle of wine would cause me to enjoy it less, regardless of how good it actually was, but perhaps I’m just a cheapskate when it comes to wine.
Do you enjoy things more when you pay more for them? Or when you know the price is higher than other products/services?
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January 15th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
The biggest smile-jerker: knowing for the same product most people pay a lot more than I do.
That doesn’t happen all to frequently for me, so when it does, I wallow in it.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Hi Michael!
I’ve had $100/bottle wine and it tasted really good. However, my current favorite is one called “Red Bicyclette” and it’s $11/bottle. I feel guilty because I know I shouldn’t like a wine that cost this little. I do now however understand why you decant a red before serving it to guests. It has nothing to do with letting it breath, it has everything to do with disguising the fact that you are serving a great, drinkable, but cheap wine.
On the other hand, there was a time when I wouldn’t own video equipment that wasn’t Sony. It stemmed from my days in video and had very little to do with the quality of the equipment I was buying and everything to do with the name. So yea, I’m as guilty as the next guy.
=C=
January 16th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Hey Cal:
Thanks for the decanting tip. I *could* just get a pricing gun and reprice my bottles, but maybe the Minnie Pearl approach on wine bottles doesn’t scream “sophisticated”.