Challenging your perceptions

Apparently it was a Roman called Apicius in the 1st century AD who first coined the phrase ‘we eat with our eyes’. Clever chap. Millennia later, neuroscientists recognise that the brain processes visual cues faster than it does taste and smell – so inevitably looks do affect taste. Wine lovers are not immune: in 2001, PhD psychologist and winegrower Frédéric Brochet conducted an experiment at the University of Bordeaux where 54 oenology students were presented with a white wine stained red with an odourless dye and asked to describe the flavour. All 54 used typical red wine adjectives. But what about sound? Can music or white noise influence taste?

Nederburg’s Five Senses Food & Wine Experience (nederburg.com) explores how the various senses are linked by depriving you of two of them. After a welcome glass of Nederburg Cap Classique, you are seated at a table in the 19th-century Cape Dutch manor house, then blindfolded. A pair of wireless headphones is placed over your ears, filling your brain with selected sounds. The first of three mini-canapé courses, each one matched with a Nederburg wine, is then brought to the table. For each match, guided by hand, your server will help you to find your wine glass and fork, to smell, then taste. The table is cleared, and the blindfold and headphones are removed. The exact same combination of bite-sized dish and paired wine is then brought to the table for you to experience with all senses on board. Does depriving certain senses enhance or detract from taste perception? If so, how much? Book and find out!

Tip Come with an open mind Address Sonstraal Road, Dal Josafat, Paarl 7646 Tel +27 (0)21 862 3104. Available twice a day (at 11.00 and 15.00) every day apart from Tuesdays. Booking essential Cost R550pp (£27), minimum four people