Why you think expensive wines taste better revealed - Study

You might be forgiven to think that a bottle of wine tastes better because it is expensive. But a new research has found why more expensive wine does in fact taste better, and it relates to the reward to some areas of the brain. 

The researchers hope their findings will shed light on the placebo effect - a marketing tactic often used to coerce people into buying more expensive goods.

Researchers from the INSEAD Business School and the University of Bonn looked at how different prices are translated into taste experiences in the brain, even if the wine tastes the same. 

The study involved 30 participants – 15 women and 15 men, with an average age of 30.

The participants lay in an MRI scanner while tasting various wines, allowing brain activity to be recorded.

A price for a wine was shown, before around one millilitre was given to the participant via a tube in their mouths.

The participants were then asked to rate how good the wine tasted on a nine-point scale.

Their mouths were rinsed with a neutral liquid and the next identical wine sample was given for tasting – but at a different price.

The marketing placebo effect has its limits: If, for example, a very low-quality wine is offered for €100 [£90/$117], the effect would predictably be absent, said Professor Bernd Weber, lead author of the study.

Instead, the researchers carried out the tests using an average to good quality red wine with a retail bottle prize of €12 (£11/$14).

The price of this wine was shown randomly as €3 (£2.70/$3.50), €6 (£5.45/$7) and €18 (£16.30/$21.20).

And to make the study as realistic as possible, the participants were given €45 (£40.86/$53) of initial credit.

The reward system is activated in a significantly stronger fashion with higher prices and in this way apparently also the taste experience," said Bernd Weber of Germany's Bonn University, which conducted the research with France's INSEAD Business School.

The fascinating question is now whether we can train the reward system so that it is less susceptible to such 'placebo marketing' effects," Weber said.

For some of the tastings, the displayed sum was deducted from this account.

Professor Hilke Plassmann, who also worked on the study, said:

As expected, the subjects stated that the wine with the higher price tasted better than an apparently cheaper one.

However, it was not important whether the participants also had to pay for the wine or whether they were given it for free.'

The MRI scanner showed that the frontal lobes and the ventral striatum - thought to be involved in reward processing and motivation - were more active with the higher prices.

In the end it seems like the reward and motivation system is playing a trick on us," INSEAD researcher Liane Schmidt said.

The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.