Prof. Charles Spence set to kickoff Wine Vision next week

By Erin Smith

Published: 14 November, 2014

Wine Vision, a conference that draws leaders of the wine trade from around the world, will open next week with Charles Spence a professor of Experimental Psychology at Oxford Univiersty kicking off the event with a multi sensory experience.

Monday evening marks the beginning of Wine Vision with Spence sharing some of expertise around the perceptions of wine and how other senses such as light and sound may alter people's perception of wine. The event is to be hosted at the Shangrai-La Hotel, at the Shard.

Sensorium Sensorium

Spence ran an experiment in conjunction with the leading Spanish wine brand, Campo Viejo, earlier this year in the spring where almost 3,000 people participated. The Campo Viejo Colour Lab was a pop-up installation at the Streets of Spain festival in London in May and participants walked through and experienced the influence colour and sound has on taste and recorded their perceptions of single wine. Each participant on entering the lab was given a single glass of wine to taste whilst being exposed to a selection of scientifically chosen sounds and colours.

Results of the experiment show that a change in colour and sound can immediately affect the taste of wine by nearly 10%, which is scientifically a significant shift in perception. The results also revealed that changing the environment focussing on colour and music styles in particular has an almost instantaneous effect on taste perception.

It is the cutting edge experiments and the offering of unique consumer experiences like this that major brands, like Campo Viejo and Singleton Whisky, are adopting in order to engage more and build stronger brand identities with consumers.

Innovators like Spence and others that will be leading the debates and discussions at this year's conference.

Wine Vision is an event that over two and half days brings leaders of the trade together to participate in debates chaired by experts and innovators from the wine trade, but also from leaders of other industries as well.

Mike Raticliff, managing director of Warwick Estate, Jean-Guillaume Prats, president and chief executive officer of Moët Hennessy Estates & Wines, Troy Christensen, chief executive officer of Enotria Wine Cellars and Mike Veseth, the Wine Economist will all be hosting and participating in debates that cover the future of the wine trade, what opportunities lie ahead and how retailing is helping to shape the wine trade.

Other industry leaders such as Kevin Shaw, from Stranger and Stranger design agency, Robin Copestick, of Copestick Murray, Tyler Balliet, founder and president of Second Glass which created Wine Riot in the US, and Jon Morter dubbed the "Social Media Hellraiser" by the New York Times, will talk about the innovations and opportunities within the wine trade that brands could and should be capitalising on now.

Click Wine Vision for more information and the full agenda of the conference.

The Harpers team will be reporting live from the event so please visit the website regularly as we will be posting live blogs and expect full daily news coverage. You can also follow us on twitter at @HarpersWIne.