(QZ) - You’re seated at an ivory table in an Ikea-furnished room. A mustached man in a tailcoat enters, and gently sets two unmarked bottles of wine down on the table along with a crystal tasting glass. He informs you in his thick German accent that one bottle is $5, and the other $50. He politely challenges you to taste them to identify the more expensive of the two. 

What percentage of the time could you identify the more expensive wine? 70%? 100%?

In a study conducted by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at Hertfordshire University, 578 people were asked to do distinguish between cheap and expensive bottles across a broad selection of both red and white wines. On average, each taster correctly identified the wine’s price category just 47% of the time for reds and 53% of the time for whites. In other words, the probability of distinguishing correctly was akin to a coin flip!

While most of us would like to think we can tell the difference, in reality, the average wine consumer struggles to differentiate wine based on price point. (Side note: experienced wine drinkers have shown an ability to buck this trend–so don’t lose hope in your wine-drinking future. They simply know the characteristics to sniff out that are associated with pricier, high-end wines.)

Price versus quality

It’s Thanksgiving dinner, and your eccentric uncle generously decides to crack open a bottle of his special red wine. “This is a $100 bottle I’ve been saving!” he boasts, as he carefully pours each person around the table a small glass. In eager anticipation, you raise the glass to your lips and proceed to give the wine a wee taste. It’s utterly delicious, and makes that $10 bottle you brought taste like battery acid in comparison.

Now let me ask you this: If your uncle never told you the price, would you have had the same experience?

In a 2008 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, marketing professor Hilke Plassmann and her co-authors conducted a tasting where subjects were led to believe they were trying five different Cabernet Sauvignons at price points of $5, $10, $35, $45 and $90. The ruse was that they were actually only drinking three wines. The first $5 wine was given twice — once with its real $5 price tag, and another time with a fictitious $45 price label. The second wine was marked at its actual $90 price, and then provided again with a fake $10 tag. The third wine was $35 and was marked as such.

Not only did the participants claim greater enjoyment when drinking the wines that were falsely identified as more expensive, but they showed increased activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex — the region of the brain associated with pleasure.

To be clear: They didn’t just think their wine was more expensive and therefore subjectively like it more. They literally experienced something different.

Setting the mood

And so, the plot thickens!

On one hand, the average consumer struggles to distinguish between the inexpensive wine versus the expensive stuff, and on the other, the pricier we perceive a wine to be, the more likely we are to enjoy it that much more. Taking these phenomenons into account, here is my proposal.

If you are still in the early stages of your wine learning endeavors, don’t spend more than an amount you’re absolutely comfortable with on wine. For example, when I first started really getting into wine, my price ceiling was $15. Figure out what your per-bottle price level is, and set it as your max.

Also, we know that our perceptions literally change the way we taste wine, so setting the mood is crucial to priming ourselves for maximum enjoyment. To do just that, I suggest investing in the following items. Consider these your “wine perception steroids.”

• A wine decanter
• Two high-end wine glasses

This should put you out just $30 total.

Once you’ve acquired your decanter and your two beautiful glasses, proceed as follows every single time you drink wine:

1. Pour the vino into a clean decanter
2. Toss the bottle in the recycling bin
3. Pour the wine into your beautiful new glass
4. Let your imagination take flight as you revel in the finest wine this world has ever seen.