January 14

January 14, 1977: Richard “Richie” Vandenberg was born. He is a retired Australian Rules football player who competed for the Australian Football League’s (AFL) Hawthorn Football Club (Hawks). In 2015, they co-founded The Hidden Sea vegan wine company with Justin Moran. The company donates for every £9 bottle sold to help remove and recycle plastic waste from the oceans. Australia’s most well-known wine-growing regions are home to The Hidden Sea’s vegan-friendly Red Blend, Rosé, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and Sauvignon Blanc wines. The Hidden Sea is available to customers countrywide at select Asda, Sainsbury’s, Booths, and Morrisons shops as well as online at thehiddensea.com.

January 14, 2008: A study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences providing evidence that the knowledge of knowing the price of a bottle of wine affects the consumer’s experience of the wine. The researchers monitored brain scans and found that participants would experience more pleasant emotions from a bottle labeled as expensive, even if both the “expensive” and the cheap bottle were the exact same wine.

Header image: Ethan Prater — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).