Wine and music
Can songs and sounds influence our enjoyment of a particular wine? Dave Swingler investigates. My restaurateur friend noticed it first. He runs a lunchtime establishment not geared to vast volumes of wine consumption; its small and acclaimed list serves as both a hobby and marketing aid, rather than an engine room to generate margins. But he did discern that, when certain styles of music - and volume levels verging on intrusive - were part of the ambience, wine sales increased. Could it be that higher decibels had patrons leaning closer to each other, and to their glasses, or did some music set a more agreeable mood for libation?
In sensorial adventures such as food and wine appreciation, we learn to recognise specific contributions from sight, smell and taste. Indeed, formal winetasting sheets cater for all three. But only those three. What do the other senses - sound and touch - bring to the party? Do we pay too scant attention to whether or not the background sounds are a lilting waltz or a noisy jack-hammer? Ambience is obviously a chaperone to our composite sensory pleasure, and music part of it.
Like most things in our complex brains (and lives!), not all senses are equal. Smell, that satellite dish of danger and allure so essential to survival when our forefathers were brachiating through the treetops, is the most primitive. It has a direct route - bypassing any neuronal "filters" developed later - to "old" centres in the brain that stimulate mood. Which is why a scent or aroma can instantly trigger an emotionally laden memory that leaves us feeling happy, sad - or both. Sound in general, and music in particular, is a trifle more advanced but seriously influences the areas of our brain in which we integrate all sensations and associate them with memories and meanings. Both of which are central to organoleptic escapades.
Does music affect the way we taste and experience wine? We, a scientist at heart and a musician (B.Mus weaned on rock with majors in piano and flute), set out to experiment. How would perceptions of taste and the ratings of wines change if the same wines were, unbeknown to the tasters, re-offered when only the background music changed. Would specific styles of music enhance wine appreciation? Would certain wines taste better - or lesser - under the baton of different musical genres? The setting was a scheduled tasting of a circle of experienced wine enthusiasts. To minimise other confounding variables (this was "scientific", of course), the trial took place without the (willing but unwitting) guinea pigs' knowledge, in one sitting without alteration to decor or other ambient influences.
The wines had to be similar enough not to afford too varied a personal preference - it would have defeated the object if a rumbustious enfant terrible were presented alongside a refined classic - but with suitable individuality to discern differences. Three identically cellared, mature, local Bordeaux style blends from elegant producers were selected: Kanonkop Paul Sauer, Overgaauw DC Classic and Welgemeend Estate Wine. All were around 10 years old from good vintages.
They were then presented blind, in changing random order, in three (repeated, of which tasters were unaware) flights under the titled theme: "Good mature Cabernet Sauvignon blends".
In the meantime, the musical consultant had been at work. Three distinct modes of music were chosen and a selection of tracks of each, carefully timed to last the average duration of tasting a flight of three wines, were pre-recorded to obviate the need to change CDs - which would have given the game away. And what a game!
Flight one was accompanied by Maura Lympany's Best Loved Classics, a collection of popular pieces by Mozart, Chopin and others.
The second flight was enjoyed to the strains of Fairground Attraction's The first of a million kisses. With tracks such as A smile in a whisper and lyrics like 'Children with candyfloss/And prizes of goldfish/Young men kill tin ducks/In sharpshooter poses/The laughter of lovers/On the rickety stairs/The rumble of diesels/And the sounds of the fair', this can only be described as feel-good, bubblegum stuff.
Round three invoked more strident wares, a tribute to our consultant's formative musical years: Jimi Hendrix belting out Hey Joe, Purple Haze and other guitar masterpieces. We thought this would prove to be the most intrusive, discordant perhaps? Wrong!
The outcome? Apart from some good-natured chagrin about the ethics of conducting non-consenting experiments, there was no clear trend of the heightened enjoyment of any particular wine with specific music. But, significant group differences in wine preference across the flights (by both scoring and relative rating) were closely linked with musical accompaniment. And widely variable individual tasting scores for the identical wine under differing musical cover supported our notion that, when personal music-induced mood comes into play, one tastes very much the music one hears.
Overall, music is a great companion for a serious contemplation of good Cabernet: scores were high - and yet very variable for the same wines across the musical flights. Overgaauw romped home with Mozart, winning on top score (17/20), average score, most first choices and overall rating. But it obviously jarred with Jimi, languishing in third with even a disdainful 10/20 to its name. Kanonkop paired best with Hendrix's raucous rock, garnering first place and 18/20 to boot, but got stuck in last place in the Fairground, for which it obviously had no Attraction. Welgemeend? Well, it proved to be the most "music-proof", consistently emerging as second string between the others' fluctuations.
As an ensemble, the trio seemed most at home - evoking the highest average scores - with Fairground's spun sugar, but a clutch of top-flight individual ratings (18/20) for all three flowed from Jimi Hendrix's twangy guitar, although difficulty in spitting such fine wines may have had something to do with this, the last flight.
A medical study found that hospice patients required lower doses of palliative morphine when surrounded by soothing classical music. While our context was different and the experiment not pure science perhaps, it turned out to be a reasonably elegant inquiry to highlight the role music plays in setting the mood for our enjoyment of fine wine. And, like other contextual influences in sensorial endeavours - the company, setting, décor, temperature, time of day - one deserving of some regard. Anybody for a glass of Flagstone's The Music Room Cabernet?
With thanks to the good-natured members of the Grahams-town Wine Tasting Circle.
ON MUSIC AND WINE MATCHING
"The best music to listen to with a seductive wine like our 2003 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay is Portishead, Eric Clapton, Percy Sledge or Andrea Bocelli, but with a contemplative older vintage (1997 or 1993) Sauvignon Blanc my choice would be Cesaria Evora, Louis Mhlanga or the Senegalese musician, Ismael Lo.
"When you're provoking your tastebuds with a cultivar like Nebbiolo, you need something like Tom Waits' Bone Machine or Pink Floyd, but with the quick banter, laughter and smoke around a pool you need a 2001 or 2003 Mulderbosch rosé and SA Rogie's Dead men don't smoke marijuana.
"With a silky feminine Burgundy: Vaya Con Dios, Café Delmar or Shawn Phillips.
"Sade and violin adagios whisper out for a steamy bubble bath and sparkling wine. With a Shiraz, possibly Evanescence's Bring me to life, and with Pinotage perhaps Johannes Kerkorrel, but we mustn't miss the perfect match of a bottle of Tassies on a wood chip dance floor with a couple of blondes and a jukebox."
CLINTON LE SUEUR, MULDERBOSCH ASSISTANT WINEMAKER
"As I love Brahms songs and perform them myself, I would match red wine to his rich music. For La Motte Shiraz I think Die Mainacht or Sapphische Ode make a good match. With white wine I would listen to songs of Schubert and Wolf."
HANNELI KOEGELENBERG, LA MOTTE OWNER
"The music I most enjoy most with my Cabernet Sauvignon is Bach's Art of Fugue. As the piece progresses, so the complexity becomes more and more evident. In like manner, after some breathing and warming in the glass, the Upland Cabernet develops beautifully. It also takes about as long to listen to the piece as it does to finish the bottle with a friend in front of a log fire."
EDMUND OETTLE, UPLAND OWNER/WINEMAKER
"My mother taught music and throughout my early life I'd encounter these terrified kids coming to our house for lessons. My mother could be quite ferocious if you didn't practise. Initially the noise was horrible, but eventually, the kids who stuck it out learnt how to produce beautiful music. Cabernet Sauvignon is like that. You need to really work at it in a disciplined way. That's what The Music Room Cabernet Sauvignon is to us.
"As for music and wine matching - well, it's more about combining the wine, the people, the moment, the food, the situation... music is a critical thread in the tapestry of life. When you've been immersed in the emotional upliftment of beautiful music it's impossible to live without it. Like wine, music mirrors your emotions and the mood of the moment. The trick, I suppose, is to be like a sponge to the healing, uplifting, energising essence of the music and the wine. Life is much better that way."
BRUCE JACK, FLAGSTONE WINERY WINEMAKER
