Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

by Bianca Bosker

Researchers at Stanford University and CalTech put test subjects in an fMRI machine and had them taste five bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon priced from $5 to $90 each. The tasters predictably panned the cheap $5 and $10 wines, while applauding the pricier $35, $45, and $90 bottles, which made their brains’ pleasure centers go nuts with glee. But there was a twist: The bottle that cost $5 had been served a second time, disguised as a $45 wine, and the $10 wine had actually been poured from the $90 bottle. The supermarket swill was deplorable when it cost $5, and divine when accompanied by a $45 price tag.