Research has proven that women make better wine tasters than men. People are either nontasters, regular tasters or supertasters, with the latter having more taste buds. It was found that women make up two-thirds of these supertasters. Aside from this scientific evidence, what makes women better wine tasters is their mastery of nuance.

Did you know that more than 10 percent of winemakers are women? Were you aware that women have a better sense of smell than men, and that they make better wine tasters as a result? Women are serious about buying, serving, and drinking wines that satisfy their appetites, no matter what the occasion. The fact that women perceive things differently and communicate about wine in a different way could be cultural. For example, if you are brought up to spend time in the kitchen, learning spices and herbs, textures and smells, or in the garden, appreciating when a fruit is ripe by smelling it, or in the home, searching for “just the right shade of green” for the bathroom, your ideas about colour and aroma become second nature. Human nature is that men like extremes whereas women like balance!



If you were reading an article of 15 years ago, you would be led to believe that all women like white wines made into spritzers with ice-cubes. Yet more wine buying decisions, on the retail side, are made by women than men, which is why, certainly in the UK and the USA, there are more female wine buyers in the supermarkets than male. Famously, one UK supermarket (Tesco) in the late 90’s had a brief dalliance with placing two pregnant women on their buying panel as there is evidence of heightened sense of smell and taste when pregnant! I don’t believe they went as far as to insist on a Wine Buyer actually being pregnant in order to make the key decisions!!


When speaking to groups I notice men and women ask very different questions about wine – often a man will use the “question” to either show off his own knowledge (a “smarty pants”) or to put the speaker on the spot by testing their knowledge. A woman will ask a question about wine because she genuinely wants to know the answer and to know what it tastes like and how it will fit in with her lifestyle. Women have a more emotional than a pragmatic approach and rather than give it a “Score”, would prefer to tell you what it tastes like, when to drink it and in what context and what it goes with.

One strength of women is that they are prone to more open conversation and building relationships: a bonding experience encouraged all the more by wine. Wine makes you want to socialise, to open up, to share a conversation, so I think Women and Wine go hand in hand!



You will see from Tramontana's diary for 26th April that our "Fun Wine 4 Women" event on Saturday 25th in Vence set about exploring some of these ideas and combined a bit of networking and meeting new people, feminine intuition, some guesswork and a magnificent buffet - all washed down with a range of different International wines from the Fine Wine Works List! As a concept, I'd like to roll it out further and so we've put another couple of dates in the Diary for the Summer (6th June and 1st August)- please check the Calendar for details. If you find yourself with Summer guests on those dates - just bring them along too, no matter which Gender!!!

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