Cheap wine 'tastes better' with the right mood lighting

Hamburg - Diners think a glass of wine tastes better when they drink it under blue or red ambient mood lighting, according to a team of German researchers. The findings by the scientists confirm anecdotal evidence from wine merchants and restaurants who, for years, have known that the right lighting on their premises can fool customers into believing their glass of alcohol is of higher quality and more expensive than it actually is when consumed under normal lighting.

But consumers can also be warned to be wary of being tricked into thinking that wine sold in a fashionably lit bar is better than it actually is.

The researchers gave drinkers the same glass of Riesling in rooms with blue or red ambient lighting and repeated the experiment in rooms with different lighting. They found that consumers perceived the same wine to be nearly 50 per cent sweeter in red light than in white or green light.

"Fruitiness" became more highly rated under red lighting conditions. Drinkers in a red or blue setting were also prepared to spend as much as 1.50 dollars more for the same drink.

Dr Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel, of the Johannes Gutenberg University at Mainz, Germany, said: "It is already known that the colour of a drink can influence the way we taste it. We wanted to know whether background lighting, for example, in a restaurant, makes a difference as well."

He concluded that ambient lighting influences taste: "The extreme lighting conditions found in some bars can undoubtedly influence the way a wine tastes."

As yet undetermined, however, is exactly why this should be so. "We thought it was simply that colours that people found agreeable would put them in an agreeable mood. But early tests seem to show it is not as simple as that," he said.