New study: We will drink no wine before it's overpriced
Posted
Jan 15 2008, 02:23 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
A recent study involving wine-tasting in California seems to confirm our worst fears about the power of marketing. Bloomberg.com reports that not only did volunteers overwhelmingly prefer wines they had been told were more expensive (when they weren't), but brain scans confirmed that they got more pleasure from the supposedly pricier wines. The Bloomberg headline seems appropriate: "Brain scans reveal secret to tastier wine: Jack up the prices."
People in the test group were occasional wine drinkers. The results were similar when people who are knowledgeable about wine participated. This gets even worse: In a follow-up to the experiment, most people picked the $5 wine as their favorite when they weren't told about cost.
Of course, bloggers had something to say about this. Catherine Shaffer at our partner blog Wise Bread said she at first thought the study was the devil's work, until she started polishing the enamel on her $5,000 range. She loves that stove, despite its frequent repairs. "Indeed, it is the Jaguar of ovens," she writes.
"If only there was a way to convince yourself you were drinking expensive, amazing wine without actually paying more for it," wrote those clever people at The Consumerist. "Maybe that's why everyone loves Costco so much." Danny G at AdPulp also chimed in: "I'm sure there's a bit of a wine snobbery in effect here, but there's an argument to be made that this principle extends across a whole range of products. Which is why attractive, elaborate packaging works well, too."
