Last few months or so there’s been a new topic in the wine-o set about whether you can pair wine and music in the way you do with wine and food. Can a wine enhance your enjoyment of a piece of music and vice versa? I’ll not lie, I started out as a skeptic, but has that changed over time?
I first came across the idea when 20h33 went into a marketing partnership with a DJ from Bordeaux. His idea was to match up everything from orchestration to tempo and feeling. If the wine was complex then maybe you’d throw in a song with a big band behind it. If it was a strong flavour then you’d want a lot of bass. That kind of thing. I always thought that, as an idea, it was quite cool.
In practice though, do I really think it’s the same thing as food and wine matching? Well of course it isn’t. With food and wine, you’re hitting the same taste buds and sensory receptors. It makes sense that it’s so much more practical to try and match those up.
I think music, for me anyway, has always been a way of setting a mood or a mindset. I’m writing this whilst making my way through Rolling Stone’s top 100 albums. I’m on James Brown’s “Star Time”, and it really puts you in a certain mood. Does that mood warrant a glass of wine? Well…usually yeah!
So maybe you would still call me a skeptic in terms of direct pairing. But I am a huge advocate of having music and wine together to set a mood. And if nothing else it’s a bit of fun to have a play around with. Nothing wrong with that right?
Cheers
Mike
