Many people will, of course, be tempted to bring out the bubbly to celebrate over the coming week or so.
'We showed that people rated a Bordeaux wine as tasting significantly more enjoyable when paired with a heavy string quartet – something like Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No 1 in D major, K285 – while a white wine such as Pouilly Fumé was more enjoyable when listening to Mozart's Flute Quartet.' 'For example, we recently conducted a series of music-wine pairing events with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Antique Wine Company in London. Professor Spence adds: 'There is also a world of synaesthetic music-wine matching to help entertain your guests this Yuletide. Our mood also exerts a surprisingly large influence on our enjoyment of what we eat and drink – thus, making sure your guests are in jovial spirits may be one of the easiest ways of improving the taste of the food you serve. 'Anyone who is watching their waistline should look out though – a few years ago we showed that people eat significantly more mince pies in a room that smells, looks and sounds like Christmas than in one that doesn't. 'Foods are rated as tasting a lot more Christmassy if Jingle Bells or some other festive number is played in the background at mealtime. 'It is the background music, though, that is the easiest aspect of the atmosphere to control – and it is also the one that exerts the largest impact on our experience of food and drink. Professor Spence says: 'A Riesling wine will be rated as tasting sweeter under red lighting than under normal white light – as well as significantly more expensive. 'While the material properties of the cutlery can also impart a subtle taste, it is really the perceived weight that has the biggest impact on our food judgments.'īeyond the plateware and cutlery, the atmosphere of the environment we eat in will also affect our judgments.
'The cutlery we choose to eat with also plays a surprisingly large role – generally speaking, the heavier the cutlery the better the food tastes. 'Did you know, for example, that serving a dessert on a round white plate will make it taste 10% sweeter than exactly the same food served on a square black plate? He says: 'While the heart of any great meal has always got to involve the best seasonal ingredients, beautifully prepared, I believe it is the "everything else" that really makes all the difference to how enjoyable that festive meal will be. Professor Spence, who leads the Crossmodal Research Lab in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, has shown that everything from the glass we drink from to the colour and shape of the plate we eat off can influence what we think about whatever we happen to be consuming – in this case our Christmas dinner.
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