This article might be of interest:

From The Sunday TimesJanuary 13, 2008

High price makes wine taste betterJonathan Leake and Elizabeth Gibney

RESTAURANTS charging inflated prices for wine could be doing their
customers a favour. A study has found that people who pay more for a
product do enjoy it more.

The researchers discovered that people given two identical red wines
to drink said they got much more pleasure from the one they were told
had cost more. Brain scans confirmed that their pleasure centres were
activated far more by the higher-priced wine.

The findings could help to explain why rich diners are often willing
to pay thousands of pounds for a bottle of fine wine. It seems much of
the real pleasure is generated by the high price paid rather than by
the quality of the vintage.

Evidence that factors unconnected with the intrinsic qualities of a
product can be manipulated to make it more attractive have huge
implications for all retailers, not just restaurateurs.

“These results shed light on the neural effects of marketing,” said
Antonio Rangel, associate professor of economics at the California
Institute of Technology, who led the research.

Such studies reflect the growing interest in the new discipline of
neuroeconomics, one of the aims of which is to understand the
subconscious appeal of luxury products, designer labels and brand
names that cost more but offer little extra quality.

Rangel used functional magnetic resonance imaging to observe the
brains of 20 people as they were given the same Cabernet Sauvignon and
told it cost anything from £2.50 to £45 a bottle. The subjects were
asked to describe how pleasurable the wine was to drink, and most
described the “higher-priced” wine as much more enjoyable.

The researchers observed changes in a part of the brain known as the
medial orbito-frontal cortex, which plays a central role in many types
of pleasure. They found that the cortex became more activated by the
“expensive” wines than by the cheaper ones. This, said Rangel, showed
that the increase in pleasure was real, even though the products were
identical.

Hugh Johnson, the doyen of wine writers, said: “The same thing happens
if people see a designer label. The psychology is the same - it’s not
money; it’s reputation. It’s the prestige.”

He believes, however, that wine experts would not be fooled by
superficial qualities such as price. He said: “Most people who drink
wine regularly know the real retail price and resent the big mark-up
in restaurants. I think it spoils it.”

Rupert Wollheim, a master of wine who runs ripegrapes.co.uk, an online
wine retailer, said that the response described by Rangel was well
known in the wine business.

He said: “Price is just one of the elements, but if you served the
same wine in better glasses or a grander environment, that would also
make people think the very same wine was better.”

Some restaurants have madea virtue of the phenomenon. In Gordon
Ramsay’s London restaurant Pétrus the wine list includes an 1899
Château Latour Premier Grand Cru Classé at £12,500.

Other researchers point out that the subjects in the study were not
paying for the wine. The pleasure they derived from the belief that
they were drinking expensive wine might have been diluted if they had
been picking up the bill.

Scott Rick, a researcher in neuroeconomics at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said: “There are people who
derive pleasure from spending, and those for whom it is painful.

“In a study of 13,000 people it emerged that 15% were spendthrifts to
whom spending gave pleasure and 25% were tight-wads to whom it gave
pain, and the remaining 60% fell in between the two.

On Jan 13, 11:30 pm, Dave Smith  wrote:
> This article might be of interest:
>
> From The Sunday TimesJanuary 13, 2008
>
> High price makes wine taste betterJonathan Leake and Elizabeth Gibney
>
> RESTAURANTS charging inflated prices for wine could be doing their
> customers a favour. A study has found that people who pay more for a
> product do enjoy it more.
>
> The researchers discovered that people given two identical red wines
> to drink said they got much more pleasure from the one they were told
> had cost more. Brain scans confirmed that their pleasure centres were
> activated far more by the higher-priced wine.
>
> The findings could help to explain why rich diners are often willing
> to pay thousands of pounds for a bottle of fine wine. It seems much of
> the real pleasure is generated by the high price paid rather than by
> the quality of the vintage.
>
> Evidence that factors unconnected with the intrinsic qualities of a
> product can be manipulated to make it more attractive have huge
> implications for all retailers, not just restaurateurs.
>
> "These results shed light on the neural effects of marketing," said
> Antonio Rangel, associate professor of economics at the California
> Institute of Technology, who led the research.
>
> Such studies reflect the growing interest in the new discipline of
> neuroeconomics, one of the aims of which is to understand the
> subconscious appeal of luxury products, designer labels and brand
> names that cost more but offer little extra quality.
>
> Rangel used functional magnetic resonance imaging to observe the
> brains of 20 people as they were given the same Cabernet Sauvignon and
> told it cost anything from £2.50 to £45 a bottle. The subjects were
> asked to describe how pleasurable the wine was to drink, and most
> described the "higher-priced" wine as much more enjoyable.
>
> The researchers observed changes in a part of the brain known as the
> medial orbito-frontal cortex, which plays a central role in many types
> of pleasure. They found that the cortex became more activated by the
> "expensive" wines than by the cheaper ones. This, said Rangel, showed
> that the increase in pleasure was real, even though the products were
> identical.
>
> Hugh Johnson, the doyen of wine writers, said: "The same thing happens
> if people see a designer label. The psychology is the same - it's not
> money; it's reputation. It's the prestige."
>
> He believes, however, that wine experts would not be fooled by
> superficial qualities such as price. He said: "Most people who drink
> wine regularly know the real retail price and resent the big mark-up
> in restaurants. I think it spoils it."
>
> Rupert Wollheim, a master of wine who runs ripegrapes.co.uk, an online
> wine retailer, said that the response described by Rangel was well
> known in the wine business.
>
> He said: "Price is just one of the elements, but if you served the
> same wine in better glasses or a grander environment, that would also
> make people think the very same wine was better."
>
> Some restaurants have madea virtue of the phenomenon. In Gordon
> Ramsay's London restaurant Pétrus the wine list includes an 1899
> Château Latour Premier Grand Cru Classé at £12,500.
>
> Other researchers point out that the subjects in the study were not
> paying for the wine. The pleasure they derived from the belief that
> they were drinking expensive wine might have been diluted if they had
> been picking up the bill.
>
> Scott Rick, a researcher in neuroeconomics at Carnegie Mellon
> University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said: "There are people who
> derive pleasure from spending, and those for whom it is painful.
>
> "In a study of 13,000 people it emerged that 15% were spendthrifts to
> whom spending gave pleasure and 25% were tight-wads to whom it gave
> pain, and the remaining 60% fell in between the two.

I suppose the point is that there are many sources of value and
pleasure even in a simple act of drinking wine. I'm sure the same is
true of enjoying music or fin art or literature. Even reading science
can have multiple pleasures, some high and some - well low!

Lance

On Jan 13, 9:30 pm, Dave Smith  wrote:
> This article might be of interest:
>
> From The Sunday TimesJanuary 13, 2008
>
> High price makes wine taste betterJonathan Leake and Elizabeth Gibney
>
> RESTAURANTS charging inflated prices for wine could be doing their
> customers a favour. A study has found that people who pay more for a
> product do enjoy it more.
>
> The researchers discovered that people given two identical red wines
> to drink said they got much more pleasure from the one they were told
> had cost more. Brain scans confirmed that their pleasure centres were
> activated far more by the higher-priced wine.

"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking make sit so,"
Shakespeare.

What if they had to pay for the wine themselves. Being of the tightwad
disposition that would make me sad! I really like the free expensive
food they give away in Waitrose, but never buy it. I know I'm getting
the tightwads favourite pleasure boost -- something for nothing --
that would be destroyed if I actually paid for the overpriced stuff.