In recent years, we have been witnessing an incredible number of individual wines and new wine brands hitting the market expressly targeted at women. There's even a wine magazine devoted to women wine drinkers. Is there really so much of a gender gap in wine drinking and wine connoisseurship that we need special marketing efforts?
Historically, the perception has been that women drink white wine while men prefer red. Times have changed, and while significant differences remain between men and women when buying and drinking wine, stereotypes are not always accurate. Men and women are just different. Why wouldn't they have different tastes in wine?
It sounds obvious, but defining this difference is tricky. There are two popular wine-related beliefs making the rounds these days, both of which deserve to be put to rest because they are nothing more than pure and unfounded misconceptions. The first of these would have us believe that men are better qualified to taste wine than women, and the second that some wines are more appropriate for men and others for women.
It is common knowledge in the food and wine world that people fall into three broad categories, namely non-tasters, normal tasters and super-tasters; that is to say, people with limited ability, normal ability and extra-ordinary ability to discern the flavours and aromas in foods and beverages. Several studies have found that the majority of so-called super tasters – people blessed with double the normal number of taste buds – are women.
Taste is related to the number of taste buds on the tongue: the more taste buds, the stronger the ability to taste. Simply stated, women have a genetic tendency towards having a greater number of taste buds and a greater concentration of scent receptors and that make them better qualified than the majority of men to taste wines. It is therefore far more than mere coincidence that women rank very high indeed among the most highly respected people who write about and taste wines for a living. Women are more likely to be super tasters – that is, they respond more to components such as bitterness and tannin in wine.
Research has demonstrated that women are more likely than men to show preference to sweet foods, though the particular targets of satisfaction differ from culture to culture. It appears that they have preference for more fine distinction flavours which may have to do with biology. However, most tasting isn’t about taste itself – sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami – but about smell. The flavours enshrined in tasting notes are mainly perceived through aspiration into the retronasal cavity above the mouth and behind the nose. Most variability in flavour is due to smell.
Gender generally influences the sense of smell. It is known that during pregnancy, women have even more acute senses. Research shows that women are somewhat more sensitive to smells than men. If women can smell better, they would taste better because you can have maybe five sensations with your palate, but smell hundreds of aromas. The common-sense explanation of women’s greater capacities is that they evolved through their long-standing role as gatekeepers of the food supply and nurturers of vulnerable infants. Men may do the hunting, but women do the cooking, and after a couple million years, it adds up.
But if men and women have different palates – more a perception than proven fact – does that explain why they tend to favour different wines? The preconception that women prefer white wine is not necessarily true. Growing evidence suggests many women who are knowledgeable on wine opt for a red wine. Also, a recent survey in the New York area showed that 57% prefer red, and industry sources said they believe women now choose red wine as often as men.
Researchers at the Australian Wine Research Institute conducted a study on “sensory proprieties” of cabernet sauvignon and shiraz on 203 Sydney red wine drinkers, with roughly equal numbers of both sexes. The conclusion reached showed that there is no relationship between gender and taste. The determining factor for taste is genetics, not gender. We are not equal when it comes to palate. People are sensitive to some flavours and not to others.
The level of alcohol can influence women’s choice. Reds are often 14% and over, while whites range from 10% to 12%. There are no statistics on the quantity of wine consumed by each gender, but there is a consensus in the wine industry that women drink less and prefer lighter wines in terms of style, grape variety and alcohol level.
Men generally get to choose the wine when eating out. A survey found that women are more likely than men to feel uncomfortable when it comes to choosing wine at a restaurant, pairing wine with food, or interacting with a waiter when selecting wine at a restaurant. However, women buy 80% of the wine sold in the USA . Numerous studies have been done that show that the most important consumers of wine are women. They buy the wine, drink the wine, share the wine, introduce others to new wines, etc. Women are substantially less afraid to try wines made from unfamiliar varietals, from unfamiliar appellations, from unknown producers.
At a typical lunch, men start with a noble white and move to a cabernet sauvignon or shiraz , whereas women prefer a sauvignon blanc or bubbles. One physiological explanation behind women’s love of sparkling wine is they are more tolerant than men to this wine’s high acidity. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2004-2005 health survey shows 32.8% of women drink wine compared with 25% of men. Even more striking, the proportion of women drinking sparkling wine is three times higher than that of men.
If women have a head start at wine tasting, part of it surely is socialization. In fact, tasting wine requires a dose of social encouragement, since no one is born with an innate fondness for fermented grape juice. Along the socialization trail, women are more likely to learn to use and trust their senses and to rely on sense memories as reference points for talking about new experiences.
Genetic and hormonal factors make a difference in how people taste and smell, and some of those differences are related to gender. Chances are there’s more to be discovered. Existing studies have barely begun to uncover a host of other demographic factors – race, ethnicity, age – where differences could also be significant. But psychological and social attitudes to wine have more influence than palates when it comes to gender difference.
Major wine and spirits companies use well-financed research and may know something about gender thresholds and preferences for oak, tannin, acid and other wine components, but stays locked up in corporate product development vaults and never makes its way into the more public, academic arena, so the rest of us can only guess.
Women are always happy to ask questions. Findings suggest that, if a consumer is unsure about making a wine selection, women are more apt than men to seek information from store personnel, a server, sommelier, or winery personnel. Labels and shelf tags are also significantly more important for women. While winery region is very important to both men and women, women rely on medals and award more than men.
Chefs, regardless of gender, make good wine tasters, because they're practising their sensory equipment. Its equivalent to training for an athletic event: using those muscles over and over again.
Gender issues are so complex. Men and women do in fact differ in terms of the relative importance they will place on pleasure, health, and convenience as it relates to food and beverage consumption. In a study involving print ads, women were more sensitive to ads that conveyed the wine’s sensory qualities, while the men were more influenced by ads that emphasized sex appeal.
Women wine buyers are educated, smart, sophisticated, and value-conscious. They typically think of wine as a food product, and are more willing to look beyond points when they make their decisions. Health concerns also play a role, as white wine was once seen as having fewer calories than red. However although studies show that women have a more acute sense of smell than men, women are less inclined to stick their noses in a glass of wine and report every aroma they think they detect.
As the global wine industry grows more competitive, marketers are asking themselves how best to differentiate their brands to consumers in ways that are critical to success. Consumer perceptions of a wine's quality are important factors in the decision process, but with thousands of wines to choose from, how does a consumer select one wine over another? When evaluating how wine buyers make their decisions, it is probably wise to look for differences by demographic and psychographic variables.
The wine industry has entered a stage where just making good products is not enough to grow the market. There is a wide choice of products available for consumers and these industries need to move from a production orientation to a marketing orientation based upon understanding the consumer. In addition to developing new wines tailored to women’s tastes and busy lives, marketers also need to develop a better understanding of how women shop for wine. Many wineries are starting to develop products that appeal primarily to women, such as lighter, low-alcohol wines. As wines are becoming so alcoholic, it is difficult to drink a glass of wine during the week, especially with women’s busy lives. Having children, women would really like to have a glass of wine now and then, but might forego it because of the demands on their lifestyles.
Regarding wines that are “appropriate” for women, we should not take them seriously. It is true that some wines are described as “masculine” and others as “feminine”, but even a quick glance at that terminology shows that the descriptors used are taken from misguided beliefs and stereotypes about what men and women are supposed to be like. Wines that are said to be masculine, for example, are described in terms of being aggressive, deep, flinty, strong, forward, coarse and even vulgar, and those said to be feminine are soft, subtle, sensual, caressing, warm and even "sexy". Stating that men tend to favour wines described as masculine and women those that are feminine is an obvious error. Many recent market analyses in France and the United States have shown that women and men have precisely the same partiality to deep, young and aggressive cabernet sauvignon wines than they do to soft, subtle and caressing white wines made from sauvignon blanc grapes.
One of the potential misconceptions about the use of sensory consumer studies is that they might bring about homogenous wine styles. On the contrary, information about the diversity of consumer preferences allows winemakers to tailor wines that most consumers will enjoy, as well as to produce wines that appeal more strongly to specific groups of consumers. The variety and subtlety of wine flavours and tastes is part of the continued attraction of wine and this will not change.
Varietal labelling will remain helpful to the consumer as it provides a useful guide to what types of flavours might be expected in a wine. In conjunction with other label cues such as vintage, region and producer, the grape variety information on a label helps the consumer to decide, based on past experience, whether they might like the wine in the bottle. Further indication of wine style can also be helpful, whether on a back label or an explicit designation such as, “lightly oaked” or “soft, fruity style”. It is well known that individuals differ in the flavours they prefer and that the inability to detect specific smells and tastes can be hereditary. It is also important to consider that, in addition to the aforementioned genetic variations, sensory experiences are also dictated by a powerful kaleidoscope of other interactive factors: vision, emotion and memory.
Discovering why individuals are more receptive to different tastes and smells is an area that will enable winemakers to capture new audiences in a changing global marketplace.
Despite the structural diversity of taste compounds (tastants), the gustatory (taste) system senses only five types (modalities): sour, salty, bitter, sweet and umami. Specialised cells named taste receptor (TR) cells mediate recognition of these five types of tastants. These cells are tightly packed into taste buds, mainly on the surface of the tongue.
Compared to the human tongue, our powers of smell – scientifically called olfaction – are infinitely greater. Not only can we detect thousands of different odorant compounds that vary considerably in size and chemical structure, we can also distinguish and identify these odours.
It is claimed that the wines we are making and delivering to the consumer today are consistently better than at any time in the history of wine. Wine is often bought to drink in a social setting; therefore the choice of wine needs to satisfy both one’s internal ego needs as well as the external expressive needs. Emotionally one seeks an enjoyable experience, but also wants others to enjoy the choice and therefore be impressed by the buyer’s selection. Another addition to the modified model is “perceived risk”. Unlike durable goods purchases, which have functionality as an important but assessable key factor, intangible product purchases such as wine can tend to have a number of important psychological risks inherent in choices.
Although some of the diversity among individuals and populations is cultural and learnt, there could well be a genetic aspect to defining likes and dislikes for specific tastes and aromas. Scientists are working to define fully the genetic differences among individuals’ sensory perception and to do that, it is necessary to assign particular taste compounds and odorants (odour compounds) to their corresponding receptors (sensory “organs”). Considering that taste and smell receptors constitute the largest, and possibly most diverse, gene family in the human genome, this is a challenging undertaking, but one that will potentially offer great benefits to the wine industry.
Although determining the basis for preferences is difficult, the unravelling of the human genome sequence is beginning to provide a scientific understanding of how we process aromas and flavours. Moreover, advances in knowledge as to how flavour perception is influenced by factors such as ethnicity, gender and age are also being made. These studies can be used to develop an individual’s “flavour print” as a means to measure a person’s capacity to detect key flavour compounds in wine, thus providing an entry point towards establishing measures for predicting flavour preferences in market segments.
Humans, although not so dependent on the chemical senses as other mammals, are still able to detect and discriminate between thousands of different odours. The question is: How many genes are required to allow us to sense this chemical universe? In this outline, you will be introduced to the genomics of taste and smell and the genetic basis.
It is important to remember that, in addition to the aforementioned genetic variations, sensory experiences are also dictated by a kaleidoscope of other interactive factors, including vision, emotion and memory. As an illustration of this complex interactivity, when a white wine was artificially coloured red with an odourless dye, it was olfactory described as a red wine by a panel of tasters. This simple psychophysical experiment demonstrated that, because of the visual information, the tasters discounted the olfactory information and that this perceptual illusion occurred during the verbalisation phase of odour determination. It is therefore clear that there is still much work to do before the complete gustatory and olfactory codes are cracked, but thanks to the advances that are now being made, it is at least starting to look like a tractable objective.
Wine News and Information
Cocktails to beat the heat
Sangria is a super summertime wine “punch” which originated in Spain . Typically, sangria is made with red wine, fresh, seasonal fruit and a little soda water or citrus flavoured soda. It is easy to make, easy to drink and a huge hit at summer get-togethers – even for those who are not “into wine”. Over the years, the original sangria was adapted to local conditions to make a fruit-filled wine beverage that is refreshing and easy to drink with a wide variety of foods. Keep in mind that all of the following recipes are based on a standard 750ml bottle of wine.
The Basic Sangria Recipe
To make sangria you need, the juice of a lemon or orange, season fruit, 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar and a bottle of wine. Take the season fruit such as apples, peaches, grapes, plums, pears, cherries or what ever is available at home. Slice them into thin layers and place in a jar. Add the juice of an orange or lemon, pour the wine add the sugar and stir well. Finally, place the jar in the fridge for a few hours to get cold. You can also leave it overnight to chill if you’re not in a hurry. The beauty of the basic sangria recipe is that it’s as delicious as it is easy, and it only gets better as you adapt it to your own taste. This sangria recipe is perfect for large summer parties, and is even a favourite who are not normally wine drinkers.
Passion Fruit Sangria: Use pineapple and passion fruit juice mixed with a sweeter white wine ( Santa Monica white)
The New Zealander Sangria: Kiwis and limes make this a knock-out sangria recipe with origins from the islands “down under” (Monolithos white table wine)
Strawberry Sangria – a rose wine sangria: Mix fresh strawberries with one of summer’s most requested wines (Monolithos Santa Monica rose)
Monolithos Monthly News
The three most important factors that determine when it’s time to harvest are sugar levels, tannin development and acidity. Other considerations include ripeness, flavour, and pH. Of course, it’s also important to take into account the time of day that harvesting will take place.
In the “ New World ”, people choose mostly to pick by machine, whilst in the Mediterranean region, the most common method is to pick by hand. Machine harvests are quicker, yet machine harvesters do not discriminate on what they pick from the vine, so the harvest will also include branches, leaves, mould, and maybe even birds nests. In Cyprus we hand-pick, which is more time-consuming and perhaps more costly, but ensures a more carefully selected product.
During the past few weeks, we have been busy with harvesting transporting, crushing and fermenting malvasia, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and merlot grapes. This is the first time we are processing merlot which is a relatively new grape variety for Cyprus . We look forward to assessing the results!
If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit the winery or purchase any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to meet and assist you at his “Fig Tree Villa” in Pachna, so do not hesitate to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995.
We thank you for your continued support, take care and remember the words of Martin Luther:
“He who loves not wine, women and song, remains a fool his whole life long.”
Regards from all of us here at Monolithos
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