Science and creativity collaborate to pair music and wine
Five Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild protégés, composers and neuroscientists have collaborated to create a piece of music that pairs with any glass of Cabernet Sauvignon - scientifically and creatively using music notes to interact with your brain to enhance the tasting notes of the wine.
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After the wine industry was severely affected by Covid-19 lockdowns, Tasting Notes: A Story of Sound and Wine has been created to use a wine and music mash-up to change the experience of drinking wine – to make it more exciting and more accessible than ever.
“Over the past year, the South African wine industry has gone through significant challenges due to Covid-19. So Nedbank, as a long-term supporter of wine, together with the Cape Winemakers Guild, set out to transform the way people see wine through music,” said Khensani Nobanda, Nedbank Group executive for marketing and corporate affairs.
“Music is a universal language and the right wine can make any experience more pleasurable. We all know wine pairs with food, but could we tap into our collective love of music and create a literal wine-and-music pairing to achieve our goal of opening up wine to new audiences?” said Nobanda.
The scientific process entailed translating a Cabernet Sauvignon’s tasting map into an instrumentation map. This was achieved by gathering data through wearable electroencephalogram (EEG) headset technology that measured emotional responses during various rounds of sensory wine-tasting experiences.
The data was then combined with sound to taste mapping to plot the tasting experience into a piece of music. After an extensive testing period, the result is a composition that peels away the flavours of any Cabernet Sauvignon – backed by science and bolstered by imagination.
“If you’re new to wine, Tasting Notes will remove the barrier to entry, as the onus is taken off solely requiring an immaculate pallet. The oenophiles, on the other hand, may find their sensory sensitivities further enhanced by means of synaesthetic reinforcement,” said Andrea Mullineux, Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild member and winemaker at Mullineux & Leeu Family Wines.
