Wine is wine… until we know the price of it. A new study found that women, and women only, changed their opinion of a wine’s taste once its price was revealed. Ladies, it seems, do in fact have expensive taste.

Researchers from the Stockholm School of Economics and Harvard University conducted a taste test to find out how price factored into wine appreciation:

The volunteers tasted one of two Portuguese red wines, one cost $5 a bottle and one $40. One-third of the people tasted the wine without knowing the price, one-third was told the price before the tasting, and one-third learned the price afterwards.

All of the tasters were told to rate the wine on a scale that ranged from undrinkable to perfection.

For men, price didn’t matter. For women, though, knowing they were drinking the expensive stuff caused them to rank the wine much higher.

This reminds me a little of a guy friend who bought Grey Goose, drank the Grey Goose, then refilled the Grey Goose bottle with the vodka that comes in a plastic bottle. When girls came over later, he simply told them it was Grey Goose and they were thrilled. While this situation varies a tad in that the vodka wasn’t actually expensive, it’s the mere thought of money that can sadly pique our alcohol-fueled interests.

On an interesting note, the research also found that both men and women ranked the cheap wine slightly higher in the blind taste test portion. Oh yes, bring on the Three Buck Chuck (or Two Buck Chuck if you don’t live in ridiculously expensive NYC).

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