Drinking With Your Eyes: How Wine Labels Trick Us Into Buying

NPR:

We’re all guilty of it. Even if we don’t want to admit it, we’ve all been suckered into grabbing a bottle of wine off the grocery store shelf just because of what’s on the label. Seriously, who can resist the “see no evil” monkeys on a bottle of Pinot Evil?

But the tricks that get us to buy a $9 bottle of chardonnay — or splurge on a $40 pinot noir — are way more sophisticated than putting a clever monkey on the front.

A carefully crafted label can make us think the bottle is way more expensive than it is, and it can boost our enjoyment of the wine itself, says David Schuemann of CF Napa Brand Design, who has been designing wine packaging for more than a decade.

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And what about all those fancy descriptions on the back of bottles describing a chardonnay’s buttery aroma and creamy mouth feel? They also work their magic on your mind, says Aradhna Krishna, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan.

“Eating and drinking isn’t just about taste, but it’s a combination of all our five senses — smell, touch, vision and even sounds,” she says

Read the whole story: NPR