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SA neuroscientists launch world's first NeuroWine

SA neuroscientists launch world's first NeuroWine

Date: 2016-04-29
A South African team of neuromarketers and neuroscientists have today announced the launch of the world's first ever NeuroWine, a wine that was developed by taking the tools and technologies that are traditionally used in neuroscience and applying them to the art of the wine-making process.

Neural Sense, a local neuromarketing consultancy, partnered with Pieter Walser, a Cape wine maker from the BLANKBottle label, and using neuroscience and biometric technologies, tested 21 different white wine and 20 different red wine varietalsfrom a number of differentvineyardsacross the country. They assessed Walser's emotional and cognitive responses to each taste testing experience to create the world's first NeuroWine (one bottle of Red and one White).

Dr David Rosenstein, from Neural Sense, explains, "One of the pieces of technology we used - known as electroencephalography or EEG - is a device which fits around the head and picks up the electrical activity on the surface of one's scalp. It looks at how the brain is functioning and the associated brain waves, which in turn tells us various things about brain activity. Back in our laboratory, we built a model of Pieter's brain activity with Dr Lester Ryan John, and together with the other biometric data we were able to uncover his unconscious responses to the wine tasting experience. This model enabled us to determine what were the best performing aspects of the various varietals he was tasting, and identify the top winevarietalsthat his unconscious appealed to, together with his subjective reporting, to form the NeuroWine blends as our ultimate goal."

Walser admits that he sometimes struggles to make his blends due to his own preconceptions of what the wine should taste likegiven his knowledge of the vineyards from which the grapes are sourced.Walser explains, "I make about a total combination of 27 different varietals and I own no land, but I rent vineyards all over the Western Cape. I look at soil, climate and topography, and then I look at whatever grows best at each specific site.

Mark Drummond from Neural Sense adds, "Our job as neuroscientists and neuromarketers is to build an understanding of how people experience things and that could be the taste of a wine or it could even be the experience of looking at a wine label or bottle shape. Using neuromarketingtechniques and technologies we are able to explore the subconscious and the underlying emotional drivers that drive decision making."