Wine and the Taste of Happiness

Red SplashWow it’s been four months since I last posted on Joyful Days. While I feel slightly guilty about neglecting my lovely readers, this absence is a good sign that I’ve been busy enjoying my life.

During this time, I learnt two fascinating facts about wine. Wine drinkers can use these facts to save themselves a lot of money when buying wine. Non-drinkers, just be patient because at the end, as usual, there is a moral about happiness and a lesson on life.

Fact #1: The price of a wine makes no difference to its taste, but the perception of its price does.

A recent study by psychologist Richard Wiseman showed that when people were not shown the prices of wines, they could not tell the expensive wines from the cheap ones. Consequently there was no additional enjoyment when drinking expensive wines.

However, when the prices of the wines were mixed up and expensive wines labelled cheaply and cheap wines given high price tags, most people said the ‘expensive’ wines tasted better. It was the expectation of a good wine, created by the false information about its price, that led to greater enjoyment of the wine.

Does this mean we should all buy cheap wines from now on? Not exactly. What it means is that we can enjoy our wine better if we create a positive expectation of it. Such positive expectations can be created not merely by price, but alternatively by learning more about the origin and history of the wine.

I love the conclusion of the study: “And that’s why I will always be one of those annoying people who insists on muttering about malolactic fermentation while pouring Chardonnay, or on explaining the genetic kinship between Primitivo and Zinfandel when all you want is a damn glass to go with your red-sauce pasta. The reason I harass my dinner guests is that our stories have consequences, that our beliefs often matter more than the grapes.”

Fact #2: The same wine tastes better when you’re on holiday

Last night I was privileged to attend a dinner where a sommelier was present to introduce the various wines to us. The first wine was from a small village in Italy, and I casually asked if the wine would taste different if we drank it there compared to here in Singapore. Her answer surprised me.

“Yes,” she said, “the wine would taste different back in Italy, not because the wine itself was different but because you would be different. You would be on holiday, relaxed and happy, and it is for this reason that the wine would taste better to you.”

She further elaborated that couples on honeymoon would taste the wine at a vineyard, find it delightful, and buy a bottle to take home. A year later, to celebrate their first anniversary, they would open the wine, this time no longer on honeymoon but in the middle of their normal hustle and bustle lifestyle, and they would go “Hmm… I remember it tasting much better.”

This sommelier had effectively told me the same thing as the study quoted above. The state of mind of the wine drinker has a lot more to do with the enjoyment of the wine than the wine itself. Two wine experts can’t be wrong!

Wine, life and happiness

Liquid HappinessSo here’s the promised moral of the story and lesson on life. Since life is a lot like wine – mellowing with age, best enjoyed with friends, and slightly intoxicating – we can apply to life what we know about wine.

If you want to enjoy your wine: take an interest in it, relax and be happy.

If you want to enjoy your life: take an interest in it, relax and be happy.

Cheers everybody!



Top photo credit: ugod

Bottom photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

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14 Responses to “Wine and the Taste of Happiness”

  1. Betsy at Zen Mama
    May 12th, 2011 @ 12:42 pm

    I really enjoyed this post about wine. I loved the study about expensive vs. cheap wines. And we have definitely liked wines better at times and not so much at other times.
    Great Post!

  2. Tamsin@nudgeme
    May 12th, 2011 @ 6:28 pm

    GREAT to see your post in my reader this morning Daphne! Made me smile as my first job, way back when, was working in a wine company and it taught me early on that the price of wine does not necessarily determine taste and enjoyment. In fact, blind tastings, as you say, often throw up fabulous tasting wines, which might not have been considered has the price been known!

    As you rightly say, if you want to enjoy your life take an interest in it, relax and be happy. I do hope you’re enjoying life, I keep up with you on Facebook, but it’s always lovely to see your posts!

    ATB for now

    Tamsin

  3. Daphne
    May 12th, 2011 @ 7:13 pm

    Betsy, thank you for your comment and being here!

    Tamsin, you’ve always been a supporter and I’m always grateful. Wow I didn’t know you used to work with a wine company. You’re even more cool than I realised :) Yes I’ve been very absorbed with the recent elections in Singapore but now life goes back to normal and it’s nice to be posting again. Hugs and kisses, my faraway friend!

  4. J.D. Meier
    May 12th, 2011 @ 11:04 pm

    I like your surprising insights.

    There’s always a gap between intrinsic and market value, and the trick is to be mindful of the gap.

  5. Daphne
    May 13th, 2011 @ 12:41 pm

    Thanks JD! Yes the market seems to be easily fooled :)

  6. Angela J. Shirley
    May 17th, 2011 @ 2:45 am

    Yippeee! Finally something NEW from you. I don’t know if you got the message I had sent you asking when you would be posting something new. Anyway, not a wine drinker but my boyfriend is. Depending on our budget dictates which wine he gets – but the bottom line is, no matter what he gets, he sits down and ENJOYS it :) And I love the awesome bottles that it comes in. We keep them and use a lot of them for water jugs as our car’s radiator is like a shower (lol). Thanks for the awesome post and I look forwar to one really soon…

    My Website: Surviving Unemployment!
    http://survivingunemployment.weebly.com

  7. Daphne
    May 17th, 2011 @ 11:06 am

    Thanks so much for your comment, Angela. Yes I received your earlier message but replied rather late to it. Good to know that your boyfriend enjoys the wine and you enjoy the bottles. That’s what they call a synergistic partnership! :)

  8. Tess The Bold Life
    May 29th, 2011 @ 4:56 am

    What a fun and interesting post with a nice ending! Makes sense to me.

  9. Joyce at I Take Off The Mask
    June 4th, 2011 @ 2:46 pm

    Thanks for sharing, Daphne! I didn’t know that before. It must be the reason why one champagne tasted better than the other when I was having a holiday and a good time ;)

  10. Daphne
    June 5th, 2011 @ 11:13 pm

    Thanks Tess and Joyce!

  11. Salinya
    June 6th, 2011 @ 2:48 am

    This is great! I loved the study about the mixed-up price tags of cheap and expensive wines and how the same wine tasted better when you’re having a good time. It shows that our happiness is all a matter of perspective. The more we expect to gain happiness from something, the more we experience it. I guess this is related to being aware of what makes us happy, therefore taking control of our lives being relatively happier. By being mindful of ourselves, we are able to identify what will make us move forward to a happier and generally better way of living.

  12. Daphne
    June 6th, 2011 @ 12:40 pm

    Salinya,

    You’ve summarised the point of the post perfectly! Happiness truly is a matter of perspective, and we do have control over how we choose to experience wine and life :)

    Thanks for your comment!

  13. Gemma
    October 31st, 2011 @ 8:07 am

    Thank you for this post, it was a great read and what an amazing lesson to live life by :)

  14. Mr Miserable
    November 23rd, 2011 @ 11:37 pm

    Hi Daphne,

    You’ve only posted 2 articles this year. Strangely, I feel depressed by this. :(
    Hope to hear more from you soon.

    Regards,
    Mr Miserable

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