London, Dec 30 (IANS) Wine tastes better when the background lighting is done up in red or blue colour, a new study says.

Several sub-surveys, conducted by the Institute of Psychology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany), asked 500 participants how they liked a particular wine and how much they would pay for it.

They seemed to rate the same wine sample higher when exposed to red or blue ambient light rather than green or white light.

Participants were even willing to spend more on a specific bottle of Riesling when it was offered in red instead of green light.

'It is already known that the colour of a drink can influence the way we taste it,' says Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel of the experimental psychology division at Johannes Gutenberg.

'We wanted to know whether background lighting, for example in a restaurant, makes a difference as well.'

The survey showed, among other things, that the test wine was perceived as being nearly 1.5 times sweeter in red light than in white or green light. Its fruitiness was also most highly rated in red light, says a Gutenberg release.

'The extreme lighting conditions found in some bars can undoubtedly influence the way a wine tastes,' concludes Oberfeld-Twistel. He also recommends that serious wine tasting should be conducted in a neutral light colour environment.

Perhaps a partial explanation of why lighting influences the way we taste wine is that in what we perceive to be pleasant lighting conditions, we also regard the wine as being more pleasant too, Oberfeld-Twistel said.