Women and wine In celebration of International Women’s Day here are a few facts and musings about women and wine. Is it true that women are better tasters than men? Can you generalise about women’s taste in wine? Do women spend more on wine than men? How do women buy wine? Do men and women swirl their wine in different directions? These are a few questions I ponder in this light-hearted article – I apologise in advance for any tongue-in-cheek comments and generalisations! Are women better tasters than men? At a trade fair last week I was chatting to someone about winemakers and he said he was surprised that there weren’t more female winemakers as women are better tasters than men.There is some scientific research to back this up; it shows that women tend to be more sensitive to aromas and flavours because women usually have a better sense of smell. This fits with the comments in my supertasters blog that women are more likely than men to be supertasters. It is believed that women’s better or more sensitive sense of smell could be due to the need to protect their children from harmful foods back in the day or simply to be able to recognise their children in a group. Regardless of whether you buy into this I strongly believe that most people can improve their wine tasting skills or their ability to recognise aromas and flavours in wine; my advice would be to taste with other people – who wouldn’t want to anyway? It is amazing how you can start to discern aromas and flavours that other people detect in wine and build them into your “aromas & tastes library”. And talking of learning… Female Wine Experts I used to work in a very male-oriented environment, the financial world. In the early years I was almost always the only woman in meetings. I’m pleased to say that that situation did change in more recent years before I saw the light and changed careers. When I joined the wine world I wondered what the male/ female split would be. Thinking about recent trade fairs, I would estimate the split at about 60% male attendees and 40% female but I would guess that most senior positions in wine companies are still filled by men. According to the 2021-2022 Annual Report of the Institute of Masters Of Wine there are currently 150 female Masters of Wine out of a total of 415, just over a third. The study programme has been open to both women and men since the mid 1950s; it was only in 1970 that the first woman gained her MW qualification. 1979 was the first year that equal numbers of women and men passed and in 2001 more women than men became MWs for the first time. In the last 5 years over 40% of new Masters of Wine were female so the proportion of female MWs to male is growing. There are 271 professionals worldwide who have received the title of Master Sommelier since their first exam in 1969 up to and including 2022. Only in 1984 did the first womean qualify as a Master Sommelier. There are no official figures but a quick check on the list of members suggests only c.15% are women, a figure which does not seem to be improving with time. This seems quite surprising to me as there are more and more female sommeliers in restaurants these days sharing their passion for wine. Perhaps some of them are choosing to take the MW exams instead. There are 12,000+ individuals worldwide who have gained the WSET Diploma in Wines and Spirits including yours truly but no information is given on the split between the genders. I am certain the percentage is higher than the Master Sommeliers. Women’s tastes in wine Is it true that women drink more white wine and sweeter wines than men or are these just urban myths?Sensitive tasters have a tendency to dislike strong flavours and so if we continue with the very broad generalisations about women being more sensitive to smells and tastes they are unlikely to choose to drink highly tannic or highly acidic wines and more likely to gravitate toward whites, rosés and sweeter wine. Of course there is also the influence of the wineries that specifically aim those sort of wines at women. I was a little disappointed this week to read that SJP will be launching a Sauvignon Blanc and a rosé wine; it seems a little stereotypical. Why not add a red wine to the mix SJP? How women buy wine There are studies that show that women drink more wine than men… and spend less on it. What I hear from womenat wine tastings backs this up as they say that they are more likely to buy wine in the supermarket than from specialist wine stores. This is possibly a sign that more women are doing the supermarket shop than men – and another opportunity for those marketeers to target the whites and rosés at women. And let’s not forget Prosecco and how successful its marketing campaign has been – once, like most bubbly, Prosecco was consumed to celebrate and now it’s an “everyday wine”. I have read some fairly patronising articles that suggest women just need to be educated about wine and then they would spend more on it. There is also a theory that women buy wine for “wine o’clock”, an almost every day glass of wine to chill out after a busy day whereas men are more likely to buy wines for dinner parties and to impress; there has been some research that suggests that men can be more swayed to buy wine by ratings e.g. Parker Points. But that is no surprise if we go along with the generalisation that men prefer more strongly-flavoured wines. It is well-known that Robert Parker preferred big, powerful wines, the antithesis of what many women choose to drink. Women winemakers Traditionally

Wine Tasting etiquette A fun look at wine tastings and how to tackle them A while ago I got myself into a Twitter discussion with Victoria Moore, author & wine editor for the Daily Telegraph, about the things we don’t like about trade wine tastings, so I thought it might be interesting to share them with you along with some other dos and don’ts at wine tastings. Whether you are an expert wine-taster or a novice, whether you attend walk-around wine tastings or hosted sit-down tastings and whether you taste 6 or 60 wines, there are certain things you might find useful to know. Trade wine tastings Just to set the scene, most trade wine tastings take place in large halls with sometimes hundreds of wines available to taste. The wines are lined up on tables and may be poured for you though sometimes they are self-pour tastings. Whilst I would love to spend my time wandering the vineyards of the world seeking out fantastic wines, trade tastings are more convenient. This way the wines come to you and are a great opportunity to taste a lot of wines in one place, although every palate has its limits. The etiquette for the wine trade fairs can be translated to more consumer-focused tastings which may be walk-around or, like the ones that I host, more often are sit-down tastings with someone talking you through the wines. so how to tackle them? Perhaps first and foremost find out the format Will it be walk-around or sit-down? Will someone be talking to you about the wines? Will the wines be poured out for you or will it be a self-pour tasting? Knowing in advance means you can be prepared. Don’t forget if it’s a walk-around to pick up a wine-glass and a tasting book and pen – if you are old school. Notes on your phone will do equally as well and there are also apps designed to allow wine tasting notes to be added. Don’t hog the wine tables (& don’t hassle the wine writer!) Victoria Moore’s main bugbear as I recall is people who want to talk to her, not necessarily about the wines, when she wants to focus and get on with her tasting; after all she is at work, not on a jolly. I don’t suffer with that recognition problem so I am left to get on with it but my biggest issue is people hogging the wine tables. I’m not the tallest person and when tastings are busy sometimes struggle to get myself to the front and to the wine. Come on guys – unless you are having a conversation with the winemaker about his or her wine, move away from the table once you have your sample so that others can taste the wine too. Introduce yourself Talking of winemakers, it can be useful to find out who is pouring your wine – so introduce yourself. That way you can avoid any embarrassing situations like the time I met Telmo Rodriguez without realising it was he who had poured my wine. Had I known I would have asked a lot more questions than I did. Shame as Telmo is one of the best winemakers in Rioja if not in Spain and is at the forefront of the changes happening in the region about which you can read more in my Demystifying Rioja blog post. Above you can see me discussing my least favourite grape with Anna Flowerday of TWR wines – and I am still smiling! Taste in the order you prefer Tradition has it at any consumer wine tastings that I have attended in the past that white wines are served first, reds second. In fact there is no particular reason for this and when I judge wine competitions the reds are usually tasted first followed by the whites and rosés. It’s a matter of personal preference although what does make sense is to move from lighter to heavier wines. Some days I taste whites first but usually I switch between reds, whites and rosés. If you have tasted a lot of wines and are finding it difficult to discern flavours anymore, for example after tasting a lot of heavy or particularly tannic reds, refresh your palate by having a sip of or washing your mouth with champagne or sparkling wine. It really works to neutralise your taste buds. For this same reason I taste sparkling wines after the still wines but, again, it’s a matter of personal choice. Except… leave the sweet wines until last The sugar in dessert wines seems to coat the mouth and at best mask flavours in any further dry wines. It can even make dry wine taste rather bitter. Don’t expect a clean glass for every wine It is usually expected that you use just one glass though I think you can be forgiven for taking a clean glass after the reds. It should be sufficient however to pour any last drops into a spittoon and if moving from red to white wines, swill the glass with water or with a touch of white wine to “clean” it. If self-pouring, don’t fill your glass A tasting is a tasting after all and one mouthful should be sufficient for you decide if the wine is a good one and if you like it. There is something irritating about finding out there is none of that wine that you have been looking forward to tasting all day. Hold your wine glass by the stem If you hold your wine glass by the bowl, you will warm up the wine inside – if red wine is served too warm it can taste a little flat and the alcohol may dominate making the wine seem out of balance. You may of course want to warm up the wine as wine that is served too cold can mask any complex aromas and flavours and emphasise the tannins. Ideally the wine served at the tasting

Wine Ratings; what’s the score? A critique of the wine critics There are many people who review and score wine; I am often asked which of these wine critics I rate. So below are those wine critics at the top of my list and why together with some information on the different ways in which they rate wine. I include what I think are the minimum wine scores that you should look for from each of my selected wine critics if you wish to ensure that you are getting a really good quality wine. Plus some things to bear in mind when looking generally at wine ratings. Wines With Attitude’s approach to wine ratings Wines With Attitude Customers and regular readers of my wine blog posts will know that it is only after I have selected wines for the Wines With Attitude portfolio that I subsequently check whether the wines chosen have been reviewed and / or scored by wine critics. If they have I will include the scores and comments in order to give you, the consumers, more information upon which to base your wine-purchasing decision. I don’t necessarily always agree with the reviews or scores – but they are another opinion – and usually any differences in opinion are more a question of taste than of the wine’s quality. Things to bear in mind when looking at wine ratings Firstly, remember that not all wines are reviewed. So if you see a wine that has no rating it could simply be that the producer or importer of that wine has chosen not to submit it for review. Some wines are reviewed religiously each year but more often than not a producer will seek ratings when they are trying to build up their reputation and increase sales. Once they hit the big time, they often rely more on the reputation that they have built rather than on other people’s opinions. The fact that a wine does not have a score attributed to it does not mean that it falls in the “Avoid this wine at all costs” category. If you restrict yourself to drinking only those that have a score, you may miss out on some amazing wines. Wine ratings and reviews are considered by many to be crucial to the wine industry; they can make or break a wine’s reputation and ultimately its sales. The ratings and reviews given by wine critics carry a lot of weight, but it is interesting to note that they can differ greatly depending on who has written them. Critics such as Jancis Robinson, The Wine Advocate and Decanter all have their own unique styles and preferences when it comes to tasting and rating wines, leading to a range of scores for the same wine. So, what do these wine critics look for when rating wine? Jancis Robinson and team are known for their focus on balance and harmony in wines, favouring those that are elegant and restrained. The Wine Advocate or RobertParker.com perpetuates the reputation that founder Robert Parker had for favouring bolder, richer wines with more intense fruit flavours. Decanter takes a more holistic approach, considering factors such as the wine’s ageability, complexity, and typicity i.e. how well it represents its style or region. These differing perspectives and preferences can lead to vastly different scores for the same wine, leaving consumers to navigate a sea of conflicting opinions. Another factor that can influence wine ratings and reviews is personal taste. Although it should be wine quality rather than its taste that is judged, personal preference is bound to have an impact. At the end of the day, wine is a subjective experience, and what one person loves, another may hate. Critics are no exception to this rule – they have their own individual palates and preferences that will influence their ratings. Some may prefer certain grape varieties or regions over others, leading to higher scores for those wines. Others may be more inclined towards organic or biodynamic wines, giving such wines a higher rating even when other critics may find them lacking. Furthermore, there is the influence of external factors that can affect wine ratings and reviews. These can include factors such as the critic’s mood or health on the day they tasted the wine, the setting in which the wine was tasted, or even their personal relationships with the winery or winemaker. It is also important to say that sometimes the reviewers are tasting the wines straight from the barrel months before the wines are bottled and released – and as we know most wines of quality will change and improve over time – up to a point. Different wine reviewers & their ratings Jancis Robinson I have to confess that Jancis is my wine hero not least for forging a path for other women in the wine industry (see photo of me receiving my WSET Diploma from Jancis). I also rate the JancisRobinson.com scores because, like me, Jancis and her hugely experienced team (with at least ten Masters of Wine) are pretty strict markers in my view – though there are differences even between Jancis’ reviewers. Their maximum score is 20 points for a “truly exceptional” wine but I don’t remember the last time I saw a score from Team Jancis higher than 17.5+ points and even that level is quite rare. Bear in mind also that that 17.5 points equates to 87.5 points out of 100 which for some of the other wine critics is only just in the realms of a good wine. Other scores are: “19 – A humdinger18 – A cut above superior17 – Superior16 – Distinguished15 – Average, a perfectly nice drink with no faults but not much excitement” My view would be not to look below 15.5 points on the Jancis Robinson rating system. Wine Advocate Although you may not be familiar with the name Wine Advocate, if you are interested in wine you will almost certainly have heard of “Parker Points”.

How & why our wine tastes change Think back to when you first started drinking wine – what was your preferred wine style then? My guess is something different from your current favourite style of wine. For me personally I suspect it was something like a medium-dry German white wine a la Blue Nun or a rustic Chianti from a raffia-covered bottle but that probably says more about my age and wallet than about my taste in wine. Whatever that first glass was, it certainly wasn’t my wine epiphany which came much later. But it does follow the start to most people’s wine journey, a trajectory which starts or is perceived to start with sweeter, lighter styles of wine, moves on to bigger, bolder wines and ends up with lighter, more elegant wines. But is this journey to a wider, more sophisticated range of wines a result of a change in our sense of taste as we get older – or is there more to it than that? Our tastes in food certainly change. It’s a standing joke in my family whenever anyone eats a banana that I pull a face of disgust and everyone chants “…but you used to love bananas…”.Personally I can’t remember eating them as a child  but as I now can’t abide the smell, taste or texture of the darned things, it’s hard to imagine that I ever used to eat them let alone love them. But I will concede that it is possible because tastes do change as we age. I never used to be bothered about chocolate but I do now enjoy a piece every now and then. Similarly I used to dislike Sauvignon Blanc but now appreciate a glass of (really well-made) Sauvignon. Here’s my somewhat light-hearted look at how and why our tastes in wine change. How we taste wine (& other things) Going back to basics, when we taste anything, we pick up the five basic taste characteristics – sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami – via gustatory or taste receptors, the taste buds. Messages are sent to our brains to help us detect these characteristics but it is commonly agreed that the sense of smell is actually more important for our ability to taste than our sense of taste. In fact it is only when our sense of smell is also used, via olfactory receptors in our noses, that we are able to detect specific food flavours like strawberry, blackcurrant, chocolate etc. Part of the joy of tasting good wine is swirling and sniffing the aromas. The texture and temperature of food and wine, our hormones, memories and emotions also play a part in our ability to determine flavours. Our sense of smell in particular also helps recall memories. For example you can improve your wine-tasting skills by practice, practice, practice – and that’s not just an excuse to drink more. The wider range of wines that you taste, the better you become at distinguishing and recalling tastes and flavours. Some people smell better than others – as some people are more sensitive to tastes than others – see my blogpost on supertasters. Some people for example are very sensitive to the compound behind corked wine, TCA; others can’t smell it at all. In order to be able to smell aromas in wine, swirling the wine in your glass. This helps the aromas rise to meet your olfactory receptors but also releases aromas as the air interacts with the wine.  How our sense of taste in wine can change Several research projects have been undertaken to determine how our tastes in wine change, most recently by Sonoma State University*. They devised an unscientifically proven wine palate life cycle which suggests 4 stages of taste preferences in wine: a preference for medium dry or medium sweet white and rosé wines such as Riesling, Muscat, Prosecco dry white and rosé wines like Sauvignon Blanc and softer, lighter red wines like Merlot and Pinot Noir distinctive, more aromatic white varietals like Gruner Veltliner and Torrontes and bolder reds like Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon more distinctive wines like Barolo, Burgundies and dry Riesling. They tested this model with a survey which showed that 69% of participants said that their tastes in wine had changed over time – young adults were as likely as older participants to report a change – with 54% of participants reporting semi-sweet and sweet white and rosé wines as their initial preferred style and 61%  giving their current preferred style as dry reds and slightly sweet red wines (the latter a relatively new category popular in the US where the survey took place). By the way this study was carried out in 2018 so interesting I think to see semi-sweet and sweet wines so high so recently. Of the 31% of respondent who reported no change in preference a “statistically significant percentage” were sweet and semi-sweet wine drinkers. Why our sense of taste changes What is the main reason or reasons for wine preferences changing over time for most people? Age seems to play a large part. We are born with 10,000 taste buds all over our mouths (not just on our tongues) and these regenerate every 10 to 14 days although apparently our ability to detect aromas develops and plateaus when we are still children. As we age the regeneration of our taste buds slows down and in fact some of the taste buds don’t grow back so we end up with fewer than we used to have. This can happen in our fifties and even earlier especially for women. In addition our taste buds shrink as we get older. If that’s not bad enough our sense of smell deteriorates as we get older too although it is thought at a later age than our sense of taste, from our sixties, and sadly the deterioration cannot be reversed. Some even argue that the deterioration starts at a much earlier age. And as a triple whammy saliva production also