Thanks to its pearly-pink hue and subtle summer-berry aroma, Provençal rosé has become a symbol of the region. Here, tourists from all over indulge in the legendary drink and often buy a few bottles of Provençal rosé to remember their wonderful vacation. However, when travelers pour those bottles at home, they’re often surprised to find the wine tastes completely different.
Professor Charles Spence at the University of Oxford set out to unravel why Provençal rosé seems to change.
What Professor Spence’s Team Found
Spence confirmed that the wine from the south of France doesn’t seem as flavorful when consumed, for example, in Britain on a chilly winter evening.
He suggested the paradox of Provençal rosé is that the same wine can taste entirely different depending on the situation in which it’s consumed.
To decode this, he worked with experienced wine distributors. The team wanted to understand why wine (and possibly other products) can taste different in various consumption situations.
The team surveyed 2,000 respondents and found that 62 percent of participants enjoy the taste of food and drinks more when dining with friends than when alone.
However, 58 percent of those surveyed said that having dinner with someone they dislike can negatively affect how the food tastes.
According to Professor Spence, there is an “inseparable connection between social and emotional cues and the experience of eating and drinking wine.” This aligns with the “social facilitation effect,” a well-known idea in gastrophysics. He noted that we tend to enjoy food and drink more in the company of people we like.
He also pointed out that it’s not just the people we share a meal with who influence how food and drinks taste. The setting matters too, as reported by the Daily Mail.
“The taste and enjoyment of a particular wine can change depending on the context and environment,” Professor Spence concluded. He explained that during vacations, we are generally happy and relaxed, which affects our perception of flavors. The social situations we find ourselves in are linked to how we perceive taste. When it comes to enjoyment, “it stems from better social interactions and automatically boosts our mood.” This means our ability to assess flavors is entirely different.
White Wine with a “Wet Dog” Flavor
Professor Spence’s team conducted their research shortly after scientists from the University of Trento (Italy) advised producers against bottling white wine in clear bottles. Researchers found that white wines stored in transparent containers can react with light, leading to unpleasant aromas, including “cooked cabbage” and “wet dog.”
In a report for the journal PNAS, the Italian scientists wrote that “light can significantly damage the aromatic profile and sensory identity of varietal white wine in less than a week of storage in colorless glass bottles.”
