A wine’s deep red color may create high expectations, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll enjoy the taste more. A Cornell-led study found that appearance influenced what people expected from a wine far more than how much they liked it after tasting.

Published in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, the study asked 82 regular red-wine drinkers to assess eight unidentified wines: three Pinot Noirs and five made from hybrid grape varieties. Participants first rated each wine’s color and how much they expected to enjoy it, then tasted the wines and rated their actual enjoyment.

Some hybrid wines looked as appealing to participants as Pinot Noirs from Burgundy, Oregon, and New York’s Finger Lakes. Lighter wines, including some with yellow or brown tones, generally received lower appearance ratings and prompted lower expectations. Yet color was only a weak indicator of how much participants ultimately liked a wine.

The results may reassure growers making wines from interspecific hybrid grapes—crosses between species in the Vitis genus. Varieties such as Marquette and Maréchal Foch can produce lighter-colored wines, which some producers worry consumers will reject based on appearance alone.

Hybrid grapes may also help vineyards respond to climate change. Depending on the variety, they can offer greater cold hardiness, resistance to certain fungal diseases, or tolerance for heat and drought—useful traits as growing conditions become more difficult for traditional varieties such as Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot.

Wine director Nicole Sullivan says lighter-colored reds can surprise restaurant guests. She finds that explaining a wine’s producer and style often helps guests move past their initial expectations. A little context, the study suggests, may be enough to encourage drinkers to judge a red by its taste rather than its shade.

Read the Cornell study announcement.