Reports in the news today suggest that the enjoyment of certain wine varietals can be enhanced while listening to different styles of music. See, for example, Why wine tastes better with music, and, Music can enhance wine taste.
Examples include matches such as cabernet sauvignon with Jimi Hendrix; chardonnay with Blondie; merlot with Otis Redding and music by classical composers such as Orff and Tchaikovsky.
There is of course an enormous cultural bias inherent in this kind of research.
If you are a wine drinker whose tastes run to the blues, rock ‘n roll and bluegrass a glass of good red is hardly going to taste better while listening to Carmina Burana.
Similarly,if you have been acculturated to prefer western classical music or opera, a glass of chablis might taste a tad sharpish while Jimi’s Voodoo Chile is blasting way at volume 11 on the stereo.
One can only imagine what wines you would match with the music of Celine Dion, Ravi Shankar, Karlheinz Stockhausen or ‘J-Lo’.
Hang on Martin, is it not the music that ends up sounding better after a couple of drinks? 🙂
Seriously, I did organize a wine and music match tasting once, and while everyone enjoyed it, they did all agree somehow that Vouvray sparkler and Mozart did indeed enhance each other.
Quite so Mike. And getting away from wine, I have hazy memories of the hippie era when it was obligatory to smoke dope while listening to Pink Floyd and the like.
It seemed like a good idea at the time…
Dear Martin,
Funnily enough, I know what wine Stockhausen himself appreciated because I served it to him after a concert in London; Chateau Marquis de Termes. Surprised? You should’nt be given that he stands in the great tradition of European Art composers. On the other hand he was a great innovator so his wine equivalent might be something like Palari’s ‘Santa Ne’ a mind-blowing if expensive Sicilan from Etna made from what was for a long time an unidentified grape varietynow thought to be ‘Francisi’ which may be related to Pinot Noir. The sicilian connection is not innapropriate. Stockhausen knew the island well and always wore Sicilian shirts.
Robert Slotover
Hi Robert – I attended a concert given by Stockhausen at Melbourne University – I think in 1970.
Not that I fully understood the music – full of dissonance to these untutored ears. But memorable for all that.
What wine to complement such music? A velvety old Burgundy pehaps.