Can music change the taste of wine?

A group of foodies gathered on a hot summer evening to learn how music affects the taste of wine under the guidance of Eyal Franco from A group of foodies gathered on a hot summer evening to learn how music affects the taste of wine under the guidance of Eyal Franco from the Galil Mountain Winery. Using headphones, we tasted four cups of Galil Mountain Wines, and the findings were surprising!

Each one of us found four glasses of wines, numbered 1 to 4, placed on a placemat with a ranking table and a fancy headset of House of Marley. The choice of headphones was not random, since this company is environment friendly and so is the Galil Mountain Winery.
We were asked to taste each wine and rate it, which is a common blind wine tasting activity, but here’s the catch — we were asked to simultaneously listen to a specific playlist of the winery.

We tasted glass #1 (white wine) before starting the music, and then with Marian Maximillian’s Hurricane. We then tasted the rest of the wines found in the glasses as follows: Glass #2 (red) with Arctic Monkeys — Do I Wanna Know; Glass #3 (red) with Nouvelle Vague — Just Can’t Get Enough; and glass #4 while listening to Bob Marley — Is This Love. Our rating of the wines varied from glass to glass, and we did get the impression that our mood, at least, changed with the music.

(T. Sharon)

Following a discussion of the wines, the wines were revealed to us. Turns out we had: #1 Avivim 2015, #2 Alon 2014, #3 Alon 2014, #4 Meron 2015. This is not a mistake — we had the same wine in two of the glasses, and our ranking of it changed with different music!!! While some of us rated it slightly differently and some of us rated it entirely differently, none of us thought it was the same wine! As the wines were exposed, I tasted the “two wines” again, not believing what was said, and this time, it tasted the same.

Here’s the wines’ info:

Avivim 2015 – 94% Chardonnay, 6% Viognier fermented in new French oak barrels and aged over yeast residues for 5 months.

Alon 2014 – 41% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Syrah, 17% Cabernet Franc, 7% Petit Verdot aged for a year in oak barrels.

Meron 2015 – 87% Syrah, 13% Petit Verdot, 8% Petit Verdot aged 16 months in French oak barrels.

Galil Mountain Winery
Located in Yiron, it is a partnership of Kibbutz Yiron and Golan Heights Winery. The winery believes in good value for money for its customers and is sustainable. Its building is ecological; it is exercising reduced watering of the vineyards and uses organic methods for pesticides.

Facebook: GalilMountainWinery, Kosher.