Crossmodal perception, plate color experiments, wine label effects, and the science of why we taste with our eyes first
Written by Pick · Designer & color tool builder at ColorPick. Passionate about color theory, accessibility, and helping designers work smarter.
Close your eyes and take a sip of a clear liquid. It might be water. It might be vodka. You can probably tell. But would you know if it was white wine? A study found that even sommeliers couldn't distinguish white wine from white wine dyed red — and they described the dyed wine with red-wine vocabulary.
This is the color of flavor. The visual system is not a neutral observer of food and drink — it actively constructs the taste experience. One of the leading researchers in this field, Charles Spence, head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford University, has spent decades demonstrating that what we see profoundly shapes what we taste, smell, and feel when we eat.
The most famous experiment in this field (and one of the most striking in modern sensory science) was conducted by Morrot, Brochet, and Dubourdieu in 2001. They took a white wine and colored it red using an odorless food dye — then served it to a panel of 54 wine experts (enology students).
The result was dramatic:
A 2026 follow-up by Rodríguez-Pino et al. replicated the experiment with modern participants and added a new twist: this time, the wine sommeliers were asked to identify the two wines (one dyed, one not) under different lighting conditions. Under white light, the color dominated taste perception. Under red light (which made both wines appear similar), the same experts suddenly succeeded in telling them apart by taste alone — because the visual cue had been neutralized.
The implication: taste perception is dominated by vision when color information is available, but when color is removed, actual taste ability improves dramatically.
It's not just the food — the plate matters too. A 2015 study by Cho et al. (published in Appetite) investigated how plate color affects perceived taste.
Participants tasted the same chocolate mousse served on white, black, and red plates. The black plate consistently produced higher ratings for:
The researchers proposed that black plates increase perceived contrast between the food and the background, making the food appear richer and more visually compelling. This contrast effect then carries over to the taste experience.
Conversely, white plates can make colorful food appear more vibrant (they increase saturation perception through simultaneous contrast) but reduce perceived richness for light-colored foods.
| Plate Color | Best For | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Black | Desserts, rich sauces, red meats | Increases perceived sweetness, richness, and intensity |
| White | Colorful salads, bright vegetables | Maximizes perceived freshness and color contrast |
| Red | Meats, spicy dishes, tomato-based foods | Enhances savory and spicy notes; can reduce sweetness |
| Blue | Seafood, sushi, cold dishes | Rare in tableware; suppresses appetite for some foods |
| Gray slate | Raw fish, cheeses, minimalist presentations | Modernist effect; neutral background highlights shape/texture |
Wine is a particularly vivid case study in visual-taste interaction, because wine labels are the primary information source at the point of purchase (and, increasingly, on the restaurant table via the menu or wine list).
A 2015 study by Baptista, Rocha, and Cunha examined how label color influences perceived wine quality and purchase intent. Participants viewed identical wine descriptions with different label colors and rated their expectations.
Key findings:
The effect was not small: label color alone could shift expected price by 20-40% for the same wine, and quality ratings by 10-30%.
Restaurant lighting color dramatically affects perceived taste:
Perhaps nowhere is the color-flavor connection more commercially important than in food packaging. The color of a package sets flavor expectations before the first bite, and violated expectations can make food taste bad even if it's objectively identical.
| Flavor Profile | Package Colors | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet / Dessert | Pastel pink, creamy white, warm brown | Reds increase perceived sweetness; cool blues suppress it |
| Sour / Citrus | Bright yellow, lime green, orange | High contrast, saturated hues signal freshness |
| Savory / Umami | Deep red-brown, dark green, gold | Warm, earthy tones signal richness and depth |
| Spicy | Red, orange, yellow flames | Warm-to-hot gradient; black also signals heat |
| Organic / Natural | Earthy greens, browns, beige, kraft paper | Muted saturation, natural materials signal "healthy" |
| Bitter / Coffee / Dark Chocolate | Deep brown, black, gold accents | Darkness signals intensity; avoid light/bright colors |
Spence's Crossmodal Lab has established a robust finding: when the color of a food or its packaging is congruent with its expected flavor, the food is rated as tasting better. When there's a mismatch, ratings drop.
For example:
The principle works in both directions: color creates flavor expectations, and flavor expectations influence the actual taste experience. This is expectation-based modulation of perception — you taste what you expect to taste, and the expectation is set by color.
Professor Charles Spence at the University of Oxford has dedicated his career to understanding how sensory modalities interact — especially in the context of eating and drinking. His 2017 book Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating summarizes decades of research at the Crossmodal Research Laboratory.
Key Spence findings on color and taste:
"We don't just eat and drink with our mouths. We eat with our eyes, our ears, and our sense of touch. The multisensory experience of eating is constructed from all of these inputs, and color is perhaps the most powerful of them all." — Charles Spence, Gastrophysics
The relationship between color and perceived flavor is especially important for alcoholic beverages, where visual cues must align with regulatory and marketing constraints.
Beer color: The SRM (Standard Reference Method) scale measures beer color from pale straw (2 SRM) to imperial stout (40+ SRM). Drinkers consistently associate darker beers with higher alcohol content, more bitterness, heavier body, and roasted flavors — even when the actual beer is a light lager with artificial coloring.
Spirits: The color of spirits (from clear vodka through amber whiskey to dark rum) sets expectations about flavor intensity, sweetness, and age. A 2015 study showed that whiskey drinkers rated the same whiskey as significantly more intense when it was served with caramel coloring versus without.
Cocktails: A cocktail's color defines its flavor before the first sip. A pink drink is expected to be sweet and fruity. A green cocktail signals herbal or minty notes. A clear cocktail is perceived as lighter, crisper, and less sweet. Modern bartenders use color as intentionally as they use ingredients.
The idea that taste is a purely chemical sense — that our eyes merely identify the food and our tongue does the rest — is demonstrably false. Vision dominates the dining experience at every level: from the color of the plate to the lighting of the room, from the label on the bottle to the shade of the food itself.
For food designers, restaurateurs, and packaging designers, this is both a responsibility and an opportunity. Color is not decoration — it's an ingredient. A poorly chosen plate color can reduce the perceived quality of a $50 steak. A well-designed label can make a $15 wine taste like a $40 wine.
In Spence's words: "We don't experience flavor. We construct it." And the first building block of that construction is always color.
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