Wine, Women & Taste
It’s not the glass ceiling, but it does involve a glass.
In the world of wine, the perception that men have the expertise and women enjoy it only sweet or with club soda and ice, has been shattered.
According to the Impact Data Bank, a marketing research company, women are not only more knowledgeable when it comes to selecting wines, the lady of the house is the one with the final say in the purchase.
Females buy 57 percent of wine and make the actual wine-buying decisions in the average family, according to the research company.
“It’s definitely true,” said Bill Hendrickson, proprietor of The Wine Cellar in Cinnaminson. “Women do make the buying decisions for the majority of wines.”
The Wine Cellar is a bit different than some retail liquor outlets, he said. “We are more of a destination. We’re not a supermarket where (a woman is) just picking up something along with the groceries. Ours is a store where they come in and they ask the questions.”
Tom Canal, owner of Canal’s Wines Unlimited in Medford, agreed.
“They definitely are much more the wine consumers than men,” he said. “They’re not necessarily more knowledgeable. I think men are more knowledgeable, but women will come in and tell me what they like. They know what they like and I point them in the right direction.”
Just as men don’t like to ask for directions, they don’t like to ask questions about wine, Hendrickson said.
“He doesn’t want to show his ignorance,” Hendrickson said. Men also are more likely than women to mispronounce the name of a varietal or wine producer, such as asking for a merlot and pronouncing the “t,” according to Hendrickson.
With thousands of varieties and choices, even an educated connoisseur, male or female, is bound to feel a little intimidated when presented with that wine list.
Women may also be making more wine-buying decisions because they’re more interested in learning more about them.
“We teach classes and they are just loaded with women,” Hendrickson said. “About three semesters ago, I had a very elderly woman (in class). She was spunky and really wanted to know about the wine.”
The shop runs classes through adult education programs offered by Moorestown and Cinnaminson townships and holds several wine-related functions and charity wine-tastings throughout the year.
“For some reason, (women) have come upon wine and they want to be a little more assured of what (they’re) doing. There is a thirst for knowledge,” he said.
A study on taste sensitivity, undertaken by researchers at the Yale School of Medicine and published in Wine Enthusiast magazine, divided people into three categories — super-tasters, tasters and nontasters.
Tasters make up 50 percent of the population and nontasters include about 25 percent of the population. Super-tasters, those who are particularly sensitive to bitter substances, such as the tannins in wine, make up about 25 percent of the population. While the researchers discovered no huge differences between males and females, they did find a higher concentration of super-tasters among women. Thirty-five percent of women are super-tasters as opposed to 15 percent of men.
Hendrickson has noticed more female super-tasters.
“There’s no question about it,” he said about women and tasting. After about 12 weeks of classes with The Wine Cellar, students are given a blind taste test.
“They have to tell us the varietal, what country they think the wine is from and how much they think it costs. The women always outscore the men on that. Women just have better smell and better taste.”
Of course, not everyone agrees.
“I think women’s taste is a little more (toward the) sweet than the men,” said Canal. Since dinner wines tend to be more dry than sweet, he said he usually steers them toward a pinot noir, merlot or an evenly balanced white wine. “I think, genetically, women are more on the sweet side, anyway.”
Pamela Dalton, a sensory researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, also researched gender smell/taste differences and learned that women of childbearing age are particularly proficient at detecting low-threshold odors, which are lost on men, young girls and post-menopausal women. This may have evolved through an early woman’s role as sentinel of the food supply and guardian of vulnerable children.
What this all adds up to is what legions of female sommeliers and vintners already know, women are better at choosing fine wines. For better or worse, with more and more women studying it, becoming winemakers and sommeliers, they are changing the world of wine.
“Human nature is that men love extremes and women love balance. Now that women are more comfortable in their buying habits, we’re getting away from: How big can you make a wine? How high can the alcohol be? How much tannin? How much new oak?” said Lane Tanner, a California winemaker in Wine Enthusiast magazine.