The Bring a Bottle Podcast: Episode 62

It’s that time again! Time for another episode of the Bring A Bottle Podcast! Today we’re chatting about a myriad of things, but here’s a quick rundown of everything you need to know!

Make sure to listen to the full podcast so you catch up on all of this and more!

What’s In The Glass?

This week, Helena and Aidy are enjoying a dram of the delicious Fettercairn 12 Year Old Whisky! This whisky is full of tropical fruit flavours with a hint of ginger cake. The vanilla and caramel notes complement the fruit brilliantly and make for a whisky that is flavourful while being light and refreshing. 

Fettercairn uses a unique ‘cooling ring’ on their stills, drenching the stills in fresh, clear mountain water to capture only the finest vapours. This is a great, smooth Scotch that is a must-try this Autumn!

ABV: 40%
Size: 70cl
Find here: £38.95

Who Is The Third Drinker…?

This week we’ve got the wonderful Beth Brickenden with us, a long time friend who you might recognise from an episode she featured on a while back! Though she hasn’t brought Vanity Von Glow with her this time, she’s certainly brought her sommelier skills to help us with this week’s tasting challenge… 

To find out more about Beth and what she does, follow her on Instagram at @my.corkscrew.and.i 

What Wine Do Beavers Like?

Yep, beavers. Those little furry things that definitely don’t look like they’d be into fine wine. Well, as it turns out, beavers go MAD for wine grapes. 

Montes Wines, an experimental wine producer in Chile, like to plant their grapes in really crazy locations, and this can lead to some… unwanted visitors. Montes planted a variety of grapes on an untamed islet in Southern Chile, unaware that they would be meeting some furry friends all too soon. Of the Albarino, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay grapes planted on the islet - only one wasn’t chomped through by an army of beavers. Can you guess which one?

If you guessed Sauvignon Blanc - you’d be right! In their accidental nature experiment, Montes Wines have found empirical evidence that Chilean beavers are fussy winos who won’t settle for a New World Sauv Blanc. This Sauvignon Blanc is set to be released soon, listen in to hear the name Helena thinks it should be given…

Chardonnay in a SODA STREAM?

Don’t jump out of your seat just yet, we promise this isn’t a practice we’d let anywhere near the Bring A Bottle Podcast. However, it did come up as a possible way to impress a date on a budget… 

What we want to know is, would it work and what would it taste like? According to the depths of the internet, it actually does work - but can get dangerous! If you’re not careful, you won’t just be committing a crime on the wine world, but could also explode your machine. Don’t try this on carpet, and NEVER try this with red wine.

As for the taste, well, it’ll only be as good as the wine you put in. A bargain cooking white is not going to magically transform into a premium champagne just because it’s been made bubbly!

Read All About It: Exclusive Winebird Sake Vinalogy!

You won’t get this anywhere else, but we’ve just heard that Winebird (aka Helena) has given us a BRAND NEW and EXCLUSIVE Vinalogy for Aldi’s new sake! What’s a Vinalogy I hear you cry? Well, it’s a beautiful, elegant way of understanding wine (or sake) through storytelling - rather than just facts and figures!

If you want to find out Helena’s exclusive verdict on traditional Japanese sake amongst much, much more, you’ll have to pop on Episode 62 of The Bring A Bottle Podcast!

Cheers!

Can Music Make Wine Taste Better?

Music: A simple, yet incredibly complex pleasure with the power to alter our emotions and even change the way we perceive things. It has been at the forefront of human expression for thousands of years and over time has become even more powerful as new forms continue to emerge.

In the past decade, plenty of research has been carried out to suggest music can even affect the ways in which we interact with wine. So, let’s delve in to this and find out just what power music has when it comes to wine, and whether it can really change the way we perceive, purchase and even taste our vino?

Can Music Influence What Wine We Purchase?

According to a theory known as the 'Priming Effect', the answer to this is yes. There have been various studies over time monitoring this phenomenon, but one of the most significant took place in 1999 when scientists decided to look into the influence of music on wine purchases in wine stores.

When German music was played, a much higher concentration of German wines was purchased and the same was the case for both Spanish and Italian music and wine. It seems this 'Priming Effect' increases a particular area of our memory, influencing other decisions we make, which in this case means the wine that we purchase.

Can Music Influence How We Taste Wine?

A chap named Adrian North partnered up with Montes Winery to explore how listening to different types of music could affect the tasting notes we give the wines we drink. In order to do this he first found 4 songs and associated 'characteristics' with them, without any wine being involved. He then formed 5 different groups based on those songs:

·       Group 1: Powerful and heavy characteristics (Carmina Burana by Orff)

·       Group 2: Subtle and refined characteristics (Waltz of the Flowers from Tchaikovsky's 'Nutcracker')

·       Group 3: Zingy and refreshing characteristics (Just Can't Get Enough by Nouvelle Vague)

·       Group 4: Mellow and soft characteristics (Slow Breakdown by Michael Brook)

·       Group 5: Control group characteristics (No Music)

Participants in each group were given a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon and Chilean Chardonnay, and after 5 minutes of tasting, they were asked to describe the wines. The researchers found that the participants tended to describe the wines in similar ways to the characteristics of the music that was playing, regardless of whether they were drinking a red or white whereas the control group had a totally different set of results.

This explains why the ambience of a venue is so important and therefore why the majority of high-end restaurants will always have elaborate music playing in the background. It would also explain why people spend a lot more money in restaurants that play classical music as opposed to other forms.

Can Music Directly Affect the Quality of Wine?

Now, this question still leads to a very mixed answer although there is some evidence to suggest that music may improve the quality of wines. In fact, big names such as Cloudy Bay and De Morgenzon have already taken to the art of music in attempt to improve their wines by using outdoor speakers to play music to their vines 24 hours a day.

According to Hylan Applebaum (owner of De Morgenzon winery), music has strengthened his vines and enhanced their health. His reasoning is that as the vines increase in size due to the effect of the music, they gain a larger surface area, which in turn increases the rate of photosynthesis, sugar, and therefore concentration of flavor within the grapes.

While some laugh at his views, scientific research in South Korea has actually shown that when classical music was played to rice plants, it triggered two genes within the plant (rbcS and Ald), resulting in a better quality crop. The same was found when a similar experiment was carried out with onions!

So, there you have it. We've discovered that music can influence the types of wine we buy, allowing us to perceive we've made a better purchasing decision. We've also come to understand that music can alter the tasting profiles we give wines, deeming them as better quality. Finally, we've explored the possibility that music can trigger genes in plants, possibly resulting in better quality crops.

While more and more evidence is producing compelling results to suggest that music can in fact make our wine taste better, a lot of skepticism still remains. You've read the story. Where do you stand?