Your Brain Could Be Tricking You Into Liking Expensive Wine

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The feeling of purchasing an expensive bottle of wine is enough to send us into a euphoria. You have to admit, the first sip does taste amazing. Have you ever wondered why you immediately enjoy the fancier stuff more than your go-to cheap Merlot? It may be all in your head.

A new brain imaging study from Scientific Reports found that the higher the price tag on your wine, the more likely you are to enjoy it. Researchers put the hypothesis to the test by prompting volunteer participants to taste wines marked at different prices, ranging from €3-18 (or $4-$22). They were told that each bottle costs a different amount even though they were all the same type and brand, and cost $14.

The volunteers sipped each wine while in an MRI scanner and were tasked with rating them on a nine-point scale based on taste. The overall ratings of the “higher-priced” wines were higher than the ratings for the “lower-priced” wines.

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According to the MRI results, two parts of the volunteers’ brains were activated during the rating process: the medial pre-frontal cortex and the ventral striatum. These parts of the brain are responsible for evaluating expectations and seeking rewards. The researchers found that the wines with the “higher price tags” activated those parts more than the wines with the “lower price tags.”

So, what does this suggest? The volunteers’ minds tricked them into believing that pricier wines taste better than cheaper wines despite that they’re all the same type and brand, as well as the same price.

So maybe going the extra mile to pick up an expensive wine may not be the right way to go. Whatever your taste, just make sure you actually like the wine instead of just being enticed by its price tag.