Musical Merlot: The Grapes That Age to Bach

A few vintners and a scientist think we’re underestimating plant intelligence

By Shelby Hartman

Vintner George Hanson wanted to know how to make the best wine possible, so he asked a divine source.

What can I do to grow the best grapes I can possibly grow?

The answer: Everything in the universe, including nonhumans, has a desire, an energy, and a vibration.

Hanson responded by promptly installing a stereo system worth more than $400,000 in his underground caves at Seven Stones Winery in British Columbia. Baroque classical music plays 24 hours a day from the speakers made by Burmester, the same company that outfits the sound systems in Porsche and Mercedes Benz cars. The performance is for barrels of Hanson’s merlot.

Seven Stones Winery isn’t the only vineyard that plays classical music for its plants. Professor Stefano Mancuso at the University of Florence has studied Brunello Di Montalcino, in Italy’s Tuscany region, where he says the grapes listening to 50 Bose loud-speakers are able to appreciate sound vibrations and low frequencies between 100 and 400 Hz. Mancuso runs a lab dedicated to plant intelligence. In his popular TED talk, he says that plants have not been properly recognized for the complex awareness they have of their surroundings. The vines at DeMorgezon vineyard in South Africa also get serenaded 24 hours a day.

Hanson uses a slightly different method than the other classical vineyards though. He chooses to play music to the grapes as they’re aging in the barrels rather than when they’re still growing. His inspiration was more spiritual than scientific. He and his wife spent seven years taking workshops and going on cruises with New York Times best-selling author Esther Hicks and her husband, Jerry, learning about “The Law of Attraction.” The Hickses — Jerry died in 2011 — have gathered a nearly religious following from their books promoting the idea, among others, that people can manifest their own destinies through positive thinking. This concept of “prosperity consciousness” dates back more than a century (notably achieving a widespread following from Napoleon Hill’s popular 1937 book “Think and Grow Rich”).

“It’s very powerful and enabling when you realize that how you think, or what you think, has an energy and a vibration, and you can attract and have anything happen to you if you think about it and you care about it,” Hanson says.

George Hanson with his wine barrels at Seven Stones Winery

The Hickses’ books espouse the most modern iteration of this philosophy. According to the couple’s writings, their wisdom comes from “Abraham,” a collection of “loving entities” who are in a nonphysical dimension. They say that Esther serves as their portal to communicate with the physical world.

“There are Universal Laws that affect everything in the Universe — everything that is Non-Physical and everything that is physical,” says the Hickses’ book “The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham.” “These Laws are absolute, they are Eternal, and they are omnipresent (or everywhere). When you have a conscious awareness of these Laws, and a working understanding of them, your life experience is tremendously enhanced.”

Hanson says he has experienced the transformative impact of these laws. It was his lifelong dream to own a vineyard and winery. In 2003, when he was in his 40s, Seven Stones came out with its first vintage. “I received more recognition than I wanted, but I know the wine is even going to get better and better and better. Now, I have all the conditions to make it happen,” Hanson says.

He’s referring to the music, of course.

Next, the vineyard will perform what Hanson is calling a scientific test to prove his theory. When the fall vintage comes around in November, he will pull a couple of barrels of the merlot from the caves where the music is playing. Eighteen months later, the winery will do a taste test to compare the serenaded and not serenaded wines. Hanson has no doubt the musical grapes will taste better. In the meantime, his house guests staying in the room next to the wine caves will be serenaded around the clock. Hopefully, they like Beethoven’s Fifth on repeat.

Shelby Hartman is PrimeMind’s associate editor. Follow her on Twitter.