Recent research contends that lighting can influence both how wine tastes and how much consumers are willing to pay for it. “Ambient Lighting Modifies the Flavor of Wine,” details conclusions from three German experiments in which more than 500 people tasted Riesling wines under different lighting conditions.

Originally published in the December 2009 Journal of Sensory Studies, the National Lighting Bureau in Silver Spring, Md., forwarded a summary of the results.

The lighting experiments involved “blind” tastings in different settings using controlled fluorescent lighting. According to the summary, “People rated the wine’s quality higher, in general, when they drank it in a room whose ambient lighting was red or blue vs. green or white.

They also found the test wine much sweeter and fruitier when sampled in a room illuminated by red-tinted fluorescent lamps, and were willing to spend more for it.”

When dry and semi-dry Rieslings were tasted, “Participants perceived a wine to be spicier when they tasted it under blue or green light rather than red or white. Interestingly, blue lighting made the wine taste bitter, but subjects nonetheless liked the wine more under those lighting conditions,” researchers reported.

According to NLB, the researchers intend to conduct additional experiments. “In the meantime, it seems evident that lighting color -- which includes the color of room surfaces -- affects the taste of wine