Your Friday night plans have just been validated by science: a new study finds that eating cheese with wine makes wine taste better.

French scientists, from the Centre for Taste and Feeding Behavior in Dijon, published the results of their study in the Journal of Food Science, detailing how they paired two kinds of white and two kinds of red wine (Pacherenc, Sancerre, Bourgogne, and Madiran) with four cheeses (Epoisses, Comté, Roquefort, and Crottin de Chavignol).

They then had 31 expert tasters — who were already familiar with both products — describe their experience drinking the wine before eating the cheese, and then again after sampling some dairy. Lucky.

Most of the time, tasters said the wine tasted better after eating cheese, as it boosted the fruitiness and bouquet of the beverages, and improved feelings of enjoyment for drinkers. Or, if it didn’t improve it, eating cheese at least didn’t affect the taste adversely.

Some also lessened the mouth-drying impact of the tannins, The Telegraph notes, which is in line with previous research that has suggested that wine and cheese go so well together because the fat in cheese lubricates the mouth after tannins in wine dry it out.

“Thanks to our research we learned the duration of the perception of astringency of a certain wine could be reduced after having cheese and the four evaluated cheeses had the same effect,” said lead researcher Mara Galmarini. “In short, when having a plate of assorted cheeses, the wine will probably taste better no matter which one they choose.”

FINE. If you’re going to insist.

Use of Multi-Intake Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) to Evaluate the Influence of Cheese on Wine Perception [Journal of Food Science]

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