We are dining at a decent restaurant, sitting down at a quiet corner browsing the menu, pondering what to order.
As usual, we settled on something we like for main course. Chicken or lamb for me, and normally fish or other kind of seafood for my partner. Moving down, the choice of dessert is usually very straight-forward. We just go for whatever interests us in the menu.
Then we reach the wine selection and being novices, we are naturally at a lost. Knowing what type of wine to pair with what type of food is one thing, but choosing exactly which wine is the tedious part. To us, and likewise for others, we based our decision on price. Price is the anchor that influences our decision making process – before and after. We presume that the higher priced wine will taste better than the lower priced ones. When sipping the wine, we tend to manipulate ourselves into thinking it’s indeed worth paying for more.
When we know how much more it costs than the others, we slow down and appreciate. The history, culture, harvesting and the winemakers, they all contribute to the discrepancy in prices. The perceived value is different now, and it has nothing to do with how terrific the wine taste. It reminds me of what Simon Sinek said “People don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it.” There’s a bit storytelling and a bit of buying into the vision of the world you believe in. Everyone loves a good story.
The label on the wine bottle. It tells a little on its origin. It provides you tidbits of information which may or may not be interesting to you. But that’s what makes it pricier than the others. Design, afterall, is in the details. When we drink from an off-the-shelve bottle of wine from supermarket, we tend to be reckless with it. Bring it to our lip and it goes down our throat. Our actions are different when it’s an expensive bottle from the local store. We hold the bottle in our hands, give it a good look. Then we read what’s on the label. We take in the aroma and have a small sip.
Quintessentially, we slow down and savour. That’s the effect price has on us. The higher we go, the better it gets.