I have a very good mother-in-law. I like her a lot, but not as much as
the USPS. She's the postal service's best friend, sending us 3-5
envelopes a week with newspaper clippings she finds interesting. One
was just a couple of paragraphs, but intrigued me enough to search it
out on Google News. A search for "accordion wine" found this:
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/01/how- ... works.html

The following portion was the clipping she sent:
"Music also can direct us to certain products. For example, it can
determine what kind of wine we pick up from the shelves. In one
experiment over a two-week period, British researchers played either
accordion-heavy French music or a German brass band over the speakers
of the wine section inside a large supermarket. On French music days,
77% of consumers bought French wine, whereas on German music days, the
vast majority of consumers picked up a German selection. Intriguingly,
only one out of the 44 customers who agreed to answer a few questions
at the checkout counter mentioned the music as among the reasons they
bought the wine they did."

OK, so I have a couple questions about this.

1) First of all, is accordion really considered a particularly French
instrument? My only accordio-centric CD is Polish (though of a French
composer), a friend gave me because he knew I liked Erik Satie, didn't
realize it was accordion till it was already purchased.
If I had to put accordion is a national category, it would be Central
European (polkas and such)

2) I guess it's possible that buyers could distinguish German music
(if beer garden oompah style). But is it really possible that the vast
majority of buyers would then buy German wines? In UK? I know that in
the old days they drank plenty of hock, but my impression now is that
German wines are about as popular in UK as here. I find it hard to
believe at any market outside Germany or its neighbors that a majority
of wine purchased was German, no matter what the music.
On the other hand 77% French doesn't seem out of realm of possibility,
no matter what they played.