Does Music Enhance Wines?

Imagine this: You are hosting an elegant dinner party. But you suddenly realize that the only wine you have in the house are some inexpensive White Zinfandels. What can you do to enhance the quality of that wine? What can you do to make your guests think they are drinking some high-end wine? Try playing Polka music.

Yes, that sure sounds like strange advice. But it might just work.

Over at the San Francisco Chronicle, there is an intriguing article "Music to drink wine by: Vintner insists music can change wine's flavors."

The article talks about Clark Smith, the founder of a wine consultancy company, Vinovation, and also someone who has been in the forefront of pushing technical advances in winemaking like alcohol reduction and tannin removal. Mr. Smith has advanced a theory that “different music makes some wines taste better and others taste worse, and the great majority of tasters will agree with the "right" and "wrong" pairings regardless of their taste in wine or music.”

Mr. Smith was not the first to consider a potential connection between wine and music, but he has been doing some informal experimentation in the area. For example, he sampled 150 wines with 250 songs to “find harmonies and discordances.” His theoretical researches though are only in their early stages.

Like Nietzsche and the ancient Greeks, Mr. Smith holds to the idea of “separating thoughts and activities into Apollonian (logical) and Dionysian (intuitive).” There are wines that tend more toward either of these two types. For instance, he feels that Cabernet Sauvignon is more Dionysian. Thus, heavy metal would pair better with a Cabernet than most classical music.

And he even feels that Polka music will greatly enhance a White Zinfandel. In one experiment, he felt that the Polka music made a "Sutter Home White Zinfandel taste better than any of the reds, including his own $100 Cab.”

He has a few other guidelines based on his researches: "Red wines need either minor key or they need music that has negative emotion. They don't like happy music. With expensive reds, don't play music that makes you giggle. Pinots like sexy music. Cabernets like angry music."

I am not sure that music actually makes the wine taste any better, though I can see enhancing your experience of the wine. For instance, I really don't believe that Polka music is going to make a White Zinfandel taste better than a high-end Cabernet. I don't like Polka music in the first place so it would not enhance my wine-drinking experience at all.

The SF Chronicle did not really explain how wine would taste better even if you disliked the music that was played with it. If you think heavy metal music is just loud noise, then how could it enhance your enjoyment of a Cabernet. You would be trying to shut out the music, paying far more attention to it than your wine. And Mr. Smith seems to feel that your like or dislike of the music should not matter. But why shouldn't it matter? If you dislike a type of music, why is it going to make you like your wine any better? If anything, I would think it would make your wine worse.

I certainly can see that some seductive classical music might enhance a silky glass of Pinot Noir. Yet I think it is the experience that gets better, not necessarily the wine. The same would apply to drinking wine with good friends. The whole experience is better so maybe you think the wine tastes better.

What happens if others start accepting Mr. Smith's ideas....

Will steakhouses, which are often dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, start playing heavy metal at dinner? Will they have to add a mosh pit?

Will winemakers start attaching a music CD to their bottles to enhance the flavor of the wine?

Will tasting rooms rent vistors I-Pods so they can select the best music for the different wines they taste?

Will wine companies start sponsoring concert tours?

Should vineyards play music to their grapevines?

Well, if nothing else, Mr. Smith has proposed an interesting theory. Maybe I will conduct a few experiments of my own, to see how much validity there is to the theory. Anyone else up for some experiments too?