“A meticulous new study has found that the more people think a wine cost, the more they like it”. No great surprise, perhaps, but a long article on the price/enjoyment equation – from which this snippet is taken – is currently the most emailed story on the NY Times website.

It may, of course, just be that they’re all bored rigid with the pre-election over there, but the issue of how food and wine quality is “contextual” – recent studies suggest, for example, that the same food tastes differently on different plates – is emerging as quite a buzz topic.

For we are all – as a current best-seller suggests – Predictably Irrational.