|
Does
learning about wine enhance its enjoyment?
Recently, I've been thinking quite a bit about some of
the issues discussed in the wine and
philosophy conference that has been reported here. I'll state
clearly at the outset that I'm no philosopher - my training is as a
biologist. So I'm exploring carefully this rather unfamiliar
territory, aware that I'm liable to make some rather glaring errors of
understanding. Nevertheless, I beleive that reductionist science, in
this case physiology and neurobiology can helpfully both inform and
constrain these areas of philosophical investigation. So here are some
thoughts of mine on the issue of learning about wine and its ability
to enhance enjoyment.
The other way of answering this question is to ask
whether wine is purely a sensory pleasure? Or, to put this another
way, is the pleasure experienced by a connoisseur accessible to a
novice? Intuitively, many people would answer no to both these
questions, but let’s try to look for a more reasoned answer.
There is a level of enjoyment that relies on (or is
derived from) sensory input, but can only be accessed with
supplementary cognitive abilities that are learned. For example, if I
am faced with a sheet of music or a page of Hungarian text, I can
derive no enjoyment from them even because I can’t read either music
or Hungarian. However, if someone who reads music or speaks Hungarian
sees these same texts, they can derive enjoyment from them because
their learning has given them an ability to decode the visual stimuli
into either notes or a coherent text. The sensory (visual) experience
will be potentially the same for all when they look at the sheet or
page – irrespective of their abilities with music or languages –
but only those with appropriate learning will have the capacity to
derive enjoyment from this experience. [Actually, the visual
representations will differ because those who can understand the
significance of the stimulus will attend to it differently than those
who don’t. Thus the significance of the text will draw in the reader
to give it more attention, who will therefore have a different sensory
experience as a result. But the point I’m making is probably still
valid. This caveat illustrates the complexities of building these
sorts of arguments.]
Levels
of enjoyment
How does this apply to wine? The difference is that there is a level
of enjoyment of wine that is open to all, irrespective of experience.
We have an innate preference for some flavour cues. Many wines have
some sweetness of fruit that is appealing to novices, and certain
successful popular styles of wine focus on providing simple,
accessible, fruity flavours. People also appreciate wine for its
intoxicating properties. Let us call this wine’s ‘hedonic’
appeal. But there are two further levels of appreciation that can be
teased out, which only come with experience and learning, although it
is likely that for most of us this separation is a rather artificial
one; in reality our appreciation of wine probably results from a
seamless fusion of all three levels.
Learning,
understanding, benchmarking
The first is that of learning and understanding, a purely cognitive
process. As we learn about wine in general – the history, geography,
grape varieties, winemaking practices, differences between producers
and so on – and as we face each new glass, the different aspects of
the sensory experience take on fresh meaning. We attend to the process
of tasting more carefully; we understand the significance of the
various aromas and flavours, the structure and the texture. We begin
to develop our own ‘culture’ of wine by a process of exploration
and benchmarking: we read what ‘experts’ consider to be good and
bad expressions of wine, and this then shapes our own preferences and
values.
Acquiring
tastes
Secondly, there is a degree to which our own
preferences change, shaped in a non-cognitive manner. It seems that in
addition to possessing an innate set of flavour preferences – or
‘universals’ – people have the flexibility to acquire tastes.
These acquired tastes are often more enduring than our innate
preferences. Many of the foodstuffs around which a connoisseurship has
developed, such as coffee, real ale, cheese and malt whisky, have
tastes that are initially rather off-putting. This flexibility in
preferences is likely adaptive: in a novel environment, we would do
well to utilize as broad a range of safe foodstuffs as possible. Hence
our senses of taste and smell are closely coupled to memory: we try a
novel food item, and if we become ill then we later find it aversive;
if we don’t, then we can log this new food as potentially desirable.
The connection between memories and tastes and smells is widely
recognized, most famously in Proust’s A la Recherche, where the author’s sniff of a Madeleine dipped in
lime blossom tea took him back to his childhood and reminded him of
his meetings with Tante Leonie. Interestingly, the memory led to a
change in the author’s emotional state to that experienced during
these childhood encounters.
Another comparison, this time with visual art, can be
made. Some paintings are accessible and can be enjoyed on a hedonic
level by a broad audience. Take a trip to the National Gallery and
look at the crowds surrounding the impressionists, or the groups
admiring the photo-like precision and elegant composition of the tiny
Vermeers. You don’t need a degree in art to appreciate these
pictures. But what about the Tate Modern? To someone without a
sufficient context, it’s all a bit inaccessible and perhaps even
rather soulless.
Learning – in this case a solid grounding in the
history of art, and perhaps an understanding of the background,
influences and motivations of the artists themselves – can elevate
appreciation of all visual art, but we notice this most clearly with
works that lack sufficient initial hedonic appeal, where real
‘enjoyment’ is going to be mostly cognitive. Perhaps, though, this
separation into cognitive and non-cognitive enjoyment of sensory input
is a false one.
Cognitive input may change the ‘sensory’ experience
and lead to greater ‘sensory’ enjoyment. The fact that I have
thought and learned a great deal about wine may increase the
significance of certain taste and smell stimuli, such that when I
drink a great wine I know this immediately when it hits my palate.
Conversely, will someone untrained in wine know a ‘great’ wine the
moment they taste it? I suspect they won’t.
Here we have, potentially, a rather indirect test of
Kent Bach’s question as to whether learning enhances the enjoyment
of wine. We could present what is considered by the wine trade to be a
great wine to a group of experts and non-experts and compare their
responses. [Should we do this blind? We could, but the sight of the
label might be important to the actual sensory experience itself.] It
is likely that the novices will come away bemused by what experts
consider greatness to be in terms of wine. This is a complicated area,
though, and I’d qualify this by saying that in certain wine cultures
different qualities are revered. In wine cultures where ‘size’
(that is, the concentration, density and lushness of fruit) is
considered of primary importance, the ‘best’ wines will often be
immediately accessible to novices, so this test might not work.
Finally, I’m aware of one piece of experimental work
that addresses this question directly. Read Montague, a neuroscientist
at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, recently devised an experiment
on the basis of a series of TV commercials in the 1970s and 80s where
individuals were subjected to the ‘Pepsi challenge’. In this test
Pepsi was pitted against Coke blind, with subjects not knowing which
was which. They invariably preferred the taste of Pepsi, but this
wasn’t reflected in their buying decisions. Montague wanted to know
why. So he re-enacted the Pepsi challenge with volunteers. The
difference was that this time their brain activity was being scanned
by an MRI machine. On average, Pepsi produced a stronger response in
the ventral putamen, a region thought to process reward. In people who
preferred Pepsi, the putamen was five times as active when they drunk
Pepsi than it was in Coke-preferring subjects drinking Coke.
In a clever twist, Montague repeated the experiments,
this time telling subjects what they were drinking. Remarkably, most
of them now preferred Coke. The brain activity also changed, with
activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, a region that shapes
high-level cognitive powers. The subjects were allowing what they knew
about Coke – its brand image – to shape their preferences.
The implications for winetasting are clear. When we
don’t taste blind, our preferences are liable to be shaped by
pre-existing information we have about the wine. Try as hard as we
might to be objective, this isn’t possible. What we know about wine
will mould how we perceive the wine, and will even shape how much we
enjoy a particular bottle. The important thing to note is that the
subjects weren’t ‘fooled’ in some way by the knowledge of what
they were drinking – instead, their actual enjoyment of their
drinking experience changed. Expectations about the experience changed
the actual nature of the perceptual experience. This suggests a
mechanism for learning to change enjoyment of wine. It’s not
conclusive, of course, but strongly suggestive.
The
philosophy of wine
Back to top
|
