First off, I love music. I play guitar and aspire to play a bunch of other instruments strewn about the house. I’m always downloading new stuff. I go to concerts. I also love wine, as evidenced by my website and blog. But you expect me to buy into your Wine and Music Pairing shenanigans?
Over the last couple years, a number of publications and websites have jumped on board this phenomenon:
- WineEnthusiast recently held a wine and music pairing contest.
- Snooth has a blog category dedicated to wine and music, and even this commentary by the author who explains he includes music within his wine tasting notes “by instinct”.
- Online wine shop AmericanWinery opened up a whole website for wine and music pairings.
- Clark Smith, founder of Santa Rosa’s wine consulting company Vinovation preaches, without any actual formal studies (it seems) that music can make or break a wine. This article does a good job summarizing.
- A joint study by Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University and wine company Montes claims that music can alter the taste of wine
Do these people really believe that there are perfect wine and music pairings? Some of the comments are absolutely ridiculous:
“Moreover, it’s not possible to record a generic ‘music to drink wine by’ CD because a song that might make Pinot Noir taste great can make Cabernet Sauvignon taste awful.” – San Francisco Chronicle article
“Never play polkas with anything” – Clark Smith
“Red wines need either minor key or they need music that has negative emotion. They don’t like happy music. With expensive reds, don’t play music that makes you giggle. Pinots like sexy music. Cabernets like angry music. It’s very hard to find a piece of music that’s good for both Pinot and Cabernet.” – Clark Smith
That's my aunt and me rocking out to some concertina at a family party. I believe I'm playing the "bang your hand onto the music stand". Notice the Corona in hand. Thank God I chose Corona or my moment may have been ruined.
I agree that music can certainly shape your emotion and affect what you think about other things, like wine. The research by Heriot-Watt had participants taste wine in a room playing one of four types of music: powerful and heavy, subtle and refined, zingy and refreshing, or mellow and soft. The participants were then asked to rate the wine on each of these four metrics. The researchers speculated that if the music playing in the background were powerful and heavy, people would perceive the wine as more powerful and heavy. Not surprisingly, they found that this was indeed the case, and that music shifted the perception of the wine by about 37%.
But I think this study says more about music than wine. If you gave me a pair of leather gloves and put me in a room with Metalica and asked me to rate the gloves, I would probably rate “powerful and heavy” higher than “zingy and refreshing”. To suggest that there are certain “perfect” pairings, or that this music can ruin that varietal is a big stretch. As far as I’m concerned, listening to music I like will always improve any experience. And I love polka.
Now with all this said, there are certain circumstances where you can predict what type of wine someone will like by their musical tastes, or vice versa. I have found these truths to be self evident.
- If you primarily drink California Cabernet Sauvignon, you like Paula Abdul.
- If you prefer top 40 music, you love Pinot Grigio, blends like Manage a Trois, and wines like Seven Deadly Zins.
- If you limit your selection to French wines, you are either French, rich, or love opera and classical music.
- If you only listen to country, you think wine is for sissies.
- If you like a variety of different music, don’t adore American Idle, and believe that top 40 radio is not the best source for quality music, you probably like a variety of different wine styles including wines from Chile, Argentina, and Spain.
