Higher intelligence predicts deeper wine knowledge, study finds

A new study suggests that intelligence may help explain why some people become deeply knowledgeable about wine—even when there are no exams to pass, salaries to earn or professional advantages to gain. Researchers at Saarland University and the University of Edinburgh found that participants with higher scores on a standardized intelligence assessment also tended to perform better on a detailed wine-knowledge test. The association remained meaningful in a domain that many people explore voluntarily, offering a rare look at how cognitive ability may shape learning outside classrooms and workplaces.

The research, led by psychologist Maximilian Krolo of Saarland University and co-authored by Timothy C. Bates of the University of Edinburgh, was designed to address a longstanding problem in intelligence research. Cognitive ability is known to predict educational and occupational achievement, but those environments are structured around incentives. Students are expected to study, while employees are paid to acquire and apply knowledge. Both settings are also influenced by socioeconomic background, making it difficult to determine whether intelligence itself drives learning or simply predicts access to circumstances that encourage it.

Wine offered the researchers an unusual model for studying voluntary expertise. Viticulture, winemaking and wine styles are rarely taught in standard school curricula, and detailed wine knowledge is required in only a limited number of occupations. For most people, learning about grape varieties, growing regions, production techniques and sensory profiles does not lead directly to better grades or higher income. Yet wine is culturally prominent and intellectually demanding. Understanding it requires more than memorizing names: learners must connect climate, soil, grape biology, fermentation, maturation and sensory characteristics into an organized system of knowledge.

The study involved 525 participants, who completed two separate assessments. First, they took the International Cognitive Ability Resource, or ICAR, a widely used measure of general cognitive performance. The assessment included tasks involving verbal reasoning, matrix reasoning and the completion of numerical and alphabetical sequences. These tests are intended to capture broad problem-solving ability across several domains rather than measure knowledge acquired through formal education. Participants then completed a 68-question multiple-choice quiz covering wine-related material drawn from the syllabus of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, an internationally recognized qualification used by professionals in hospitality, retail and sommelier training.

The wine test was intended to measure structured knowledge rather than personal preference. Questions addressed subjects such as grape varieties, wine-growing regions, production methods and wine styles. Participants also reported whether they worked professionally with wine and what types of drinks they preferred. Including those variables allowed the researchers to examine whether intelligence was associated with wine knowledge independently of occupational experience and drinking preferences. A person who works in the wine trade is likely to encounter relevant information repeatedly, while someone who simply enjoys wine may have more exposure than a non-drinker, but neither factor is identical to cognitive ability.

The results showed that participants with higher intelligence scores generally answered more wine questions correctly. Differences in intelligence statistically accounted for just over 9 percent of the variation in wine-knowledge scores. In behavioral research, that is not an explanation of everything that determines expertise, but it is a substantial association for a voluntary, specialized domain. The result indicates that general cognitive ability can be linked to the development of deep knowledge even when people are not compelled to learn and when acquiring that knowledge offers no obvious financial reward.

The researchers argue that the finding may reflect how intelligence supports the organization and application of information. Wine expertise depends on recognizing relationships rather than storing isolated facts. For example, a learner may need to understand that cooler growing conditions often slow grape ripening and preserve acidity, then apply that principle when comparing regions, grape varieties and vintages. This kind of reasoning involves integrating new information with existing mental models, identifying patterns and transferring principles to unfamiliar examples. People with stronger reasoning ability may therefore be better positioned to build coherent knowledge structures as experience accumulates.

Professional experience amplified the relationship between intelligence and wine knowledge. Participants who worked with wine appeared to gain more from higher cognitive ability than those without professional involvement. Krolo and Bates suggest that organized experience may create the conditions under which cognitive differences become more visible. Wine professionals repeatedly encounter similar products, classify them, compare them, receive feedback and correct mistakes. This combination of repetition, structure and external evaluation can turn raw exposure into increasingly precise knowledge. A person may taste hundreds of wines, but without a framework for identifying, testing and revising interpretations, that exposure may produce far less expertise.

The study also challenges the popular idea that simply drinking or tasting more wine naturally creates connoisseurship. Participants who preferred wine did tend to know more about it, but preference did not strengthen the relationship between intelligence and knowledge. In other words, liking wine was associated with greater familiarity, while structured experience appeared to determine how effectively that familiarity was converted into expertise. The distinction matters beyond wine. Contact with information does not automatically produce mastery; learning is likely to be more powerful when experience is organized around comparison, feedback and the active application of principles.

The findings do not prove that intelligence causes wine expertise, and the researchers acknowledge that the study measured associations in a participant sample rather than tracking learning over time in a controlled experiment. People who are more intelligent may differ in motivation, education, reading habits or access to cultural resources, and those factors could also influence their scores. Nevertheless, the results support the idea that intelligence facilitates learning itself, rather than merely predicting who enters educational or professional environments. They also suggest a practical lesson for wine educators, retailers and hospitality businesses: tastings may have a stronger and more lasting effect when they systematically compare wines, explain underlying mechanisms and provide opportunities for correction. Wine knowledge, the researchers conclude, is not an innate social credential but a structured body of expertise that can be learned.

News Publication Date: 7-Aug-2026

Web References: https://doi.org/10.65550/001c.165719

References: Maximilian Krolo and Timothy C. Bates, “Bright People Know More About Wine,” Intelligence & Cognitive Abilities.