" 'Cause if my eyes don't deceive me, there's something going wrong around here…"

Just one more post on this subject, and then I swear I won’t discuss it anymore—I may have my fingers crossed right now, but you’ll never know, will you? The week before last I was the host of Wine Blogging Wednesday, and the topic I chose for bloggers was music and how it affects our perceptions of wine. And much like the 2-party political system this country seems to be stuck in, bloggers wound up in 1 of 2 camps: The Wow-I-Can’t-Believe-How-Much-Music-Effects-Wine Camp, and The I-Don’t-Get-This-At-All Camp. In the end, I’m just glad so many were excited at the prospect of a rather off-beat topic, and what I took away from this is that apparently we’ve got a lot of fellow wine bloggers who are also fellow musicians! Here’s a quick round-up of the bloggers who participated, and what they had to say:

The Wow-I-Can’t-Believe-How-Much-Music-Effects-Wine Camp

Ribbie’s Weblog – Ribbie ran the gamut with musical choices, from Coltrane to Santana to Mos Def, and really noticed the way the wine changed personality with the music. In the end, Coltrane was the best bet. Post here

Wine Lover’s Journal – Diane really took something away as well, and ran a double-experiment by tasting 2 wines instead of 1. Great job with the descriptions of the musical nuances Diane! Post here

Wine Predator – Gwendolyn liked the experiment so much she plans on doing it again! She tasted 2 pinot noirs with a slew of music ranging from Frank Sinatra to Bruce Springsteen…even spoken word! Post here

BrixChicks – You gotta love it when all three Chicks get together for an experiment! Three times the music, three times the wine, three times the fun. And in the end, here was the final thought: “I was skeptical that music would influence taste. SO fun to learn something new!” Post here

The Wine Whore – One of our many wine blogger/musicians, Randy did an awesome job of focusing on his senses: “My senses are solely focused on my nose, tongue, and ears with no other distractions.” He narrowed his experiment to 1 wine and 1 song choice, but when the 1 choice is Primus, how can you go wrong? Post here

My Wine Education – Michelle is an old-school gal who also focused on the single artist/single wine pairing, but had a lot of fun doing it—gotta find me a bottle of that Some Young Punks wine! Post here

A Glass After Work – Alleigh is yet another musician we have on board, and she went to the extent of listing the 5 songs she paid attention to most, in the order of their pairing “success”. The winner? Santana/Rob Thomas. Post here

Under The Grape Tree – Much like me, Kevin is the uber music geek and wine geek, all in one. Apparently, he’s also a movie geek too! Check it out: Post here

Shizfactor – 2 bottles of white wine and plenty of surprises for Erica who took a very creative approach I hadn’t thought of: live music. Her future sister-in-law was kind enough to play songs on the piano for her! She was pretty sure she knew what to expect, but came away surprised: “it is important to be on the lookout for dissonance between the structure and flavors in your sippage and the structure and melody of your tune-age.” Post here

Chronic Negress – The ever-lovely Negress really took this to task, too. Her comparisons of musical elements and enological elements were sheer poetry. Post here

1 Wine Dude – Joe kinda took the easy way out of this one (it’s OK, we still love ya, Joe!) Another fellow musician, Joe had just finished posting a CD giveaway for readers that left wine/music pairing combo suggestions, so he’s forgiven for not running the experiment himself….this time! Post here

Wine Sense – Sasha managed to write about one of my favorite new CDs out there—Playing For Change. Again, he didn’t approach this so much as an experiment between cause and effect, but nonetheless his in-depth discussion about wine/music pairing talked about the most important aspect of this all: subjectivity. Post here

Cheap Wine Ratings – OK, I’ll admit, this was probably one of my favorite posts because, like a couple of others here, Tim noticed a musical impact he honestly didn’t expect: “I guess I have learned from this experiment that music can have a dramatic influence on your tasting experience with a wine.  More dramatic than I anticipated.” Yeah, baby! Post here

Wine Label Review – I’m actually giving you a link to what is, essentially, an apology! Nonetheless, I’m waiting with much anticipation for Richard to post his 2-part video on this experiment: “I had so much juicy and pertinent information that I just couldn’t stop sharing the knowledge.” Let this be a call to action, Richard…we’re waiting!!! Post here

Come For the Wine – I wanna hang with Marcy…she’s obviously got some great music on her iPod! Final call? Aparently Italian pop and a rosé are a great match! Post here

The I-Don’t-Get-This-At-All Camp

Good Wine Under $20 – Deb asked me to forgive her “feeble efforts” but I certainly don’t think that was the case. She had a pretty good variety of music on hand, but in the end, she admitted to being too focused on the wine to let the music take control. Post here

Wannabe Wino – Unfortunately, the experiment was a semi-flop for Sonadora. She was rather tight on time, so Tori Amos was the only thing she had a chance to play. Hey, at least she made a great wine choice—Twisted Oak Murgatroyd! Post here

Ithacork – Tom did an awesome job of varying the styles of music but by his own admission, he was paying too much attention to the music to notice changes in his merlot. Putting too much thought into the process may have put up a barrier for him, but he did a hell of a job trying! Post here

Through the Walla Walla Grape Vine – Catie loves pairing wines and music but doesn’t really see direct links: “I haven’t exactly found that playing different types of music will change the experience of the wines, but what I have found there are certain wines that pair well with certain songs and musicians.” Post here

Drink What You Like – Frank has to be an OK dude because he has no idea who Michael Buble is…that’s aces in my book, as I’d rather not know either. He loves music, and loves wine, but didn’t notice the symbiotic relationship. Post here

Wine Post – Rob and I usually see things eye-to-eye when it comes to wine, but not so much when it comes to wine and music, I guess! His heart and head were certainly in the right place, and he gave it his best shot, but he just didn’t see a difference. Post here

I think I got them all, but if I missed you, please hollar and I’ll make amends. For those that took something away from this, I hope they continue to experiment. For those who didn’t really get a connection, I hope EVEN MORE that they continue to experiment. As I mentioned to a reader not too long ago, we need to understand that our brains receive several million messages through our 5 senses EVERY SECOND. Unfortunately, only about 18 of those messages get processed as thoughts, so there’s a whole lot getting lost in the process. My guess is that listening to certain musical structures may interpret the messages going from the mouth to the brain differently. The fun of it all, at the end of the day, is what really matters, though. Cheers, and thanks to all who participated!

Tagged as: music and wine, WBW