Want to transform that three-buck chuck into a vin extraordinaire? Just listen to the right melody while imbibing. The music you pay attention to while having that glass of wine influences how it tastes.

Your favorite vintner may soon be recommending listening to the Stones with that Cabernet or a moody R & B tune with your Merlot. Adrian North, a professor in applied psychology at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, found that there is a strong connection between the music you are listening to and the way a wine tastes. Over 200 adults recruited at a university campus were offered a free glass of wine in return for answering questions about how it tasted. They tasted the wine in one of five rooms where a different style of music was played or no music at all. Participants then were asked to evaluate the wine according to a set of characteristics. The study was based on a theory called cognitive priming, the idea that certain music styles prime specific parts of the brain. So when a wine is tasted, the music has “primed” you to perceive the wine in a related way.

It’s widely accepted that music affects behavior, but this is one of the first studies to actually demonstrate that music influences taste perception. Earlier research in the late 1990s showed that French and German music affect customers' choices of French and German wines. French and German music was played on alternate days with predictable results: French music led to French wines outselling German ones and German music led to the opposite outcome. Customers were unaware, however, of the effects of music on their shopping carts.

Some recommended wine-and-music matches include: