Have you noticed that wine and music share the quality of making us feel?

The professor in psychology at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Adrian North, investigated this link and published his results in a study on 2008. This showed that listening to music while drinking a wine can affects the wine flavour.

Seems like music is not only capable of influencing our moods, but the types of music can also change the organoleptic perception (how we perceive aromas and flavours) of a wine.

You may wonder, How?! Well, the music was chosen according to its styles: ‘powerful and heavy’, ‘subtle and refined’, ‘zingy and refreshing’ or ‘mellow and soft’. Qualities that can also be used to describe wine. The participants were then asked to drink red and white wines while listening to these four styles of music and when they finished drinking, they were asked to describe the wine. “What we found was that the ratings of the wine tended to mirror the ratings of the music that was playing in the background,” said North.

Thus, this study concluded that, for example, Cabernet Sauvignon is the most suitable wine variety to listen to rock, while a Syrah is more interesting to drink with an opera in the background. Do you dare to try it? It is a good excuse to taste wines with a different intention and live a new experience. If you need a recommendation, we invite you to do so by drinking a glass of Gravas del Maipo Cabernet Sauvignon or a glass of Casillero del Diablo Shiraz. Two excellent examples of these varieties.

But the relationship between music and wine has been studied even more. Considering that wine and music are vibrations that our body perceives, the professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, Charles Spence, also studied for years on the relationship between sound and taste. This is how he concluded that people can get 15% more satisfaction with their wines, if they simultaneously drink and listen to the right kind of music. In other words, if the relationship between wine and music is correct, the experience can multiply the feeling of pleasure.

And you, have you had good experiences with a particular combination of music and wine? This study recommends pairing sweet wines like Late Harvest Rosé 2019 with music with a slow tempo, even rhythm and a high pitch yet soft. Ideally piano music. While for wines with vanilla notes such as Casillero del Diablo Chardonnay it is better to listen music with a soft timbre, even rhythm and slow tempo.

This report also included other interesting discoveries: slow music can help the aromas last longer in the mouth. On the other hand, if it is faster, they last less. Or that the more you enjoy the music you listen to, the more you will like the wine you drink. An effect that is associated with the transfer of sensations.

However, the relationship between wine and music has not only been studied for its effects on humans. But also in the wine itself.

In the production of biodynamic wines, a quite common practice is for winemakers to play music in the barrels room where the wines are kept. Well, it is believed that the vibration and frequency of music is capable of improving the quality of the wine, especially in its aging process. Since electromagnetic or Hertzian waves are capable of being transported in any medium, they would be capable of affecting the wine molecules inside the barrel. In this way, today it is possible to listen to music in barrel rooms all over the world.

Now you know. The next time you want to have a glass, music could be as important as the wine you choose.