We’ve all heard it said that women are better at tasting wine than men. But can that possibly be true?
For most of my professional career as a wine speaker and wine author, I have been skeptical of the idea. But recently, I dove into the latest research. The conclusion? Most studies suggest that women do indeed have a gender-based advantage when it comes to smelling and tasting wine.
Using a new technique called isotropic fractionator, researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the University of Sāo Paulo, and the University of California/San Francisco discovered that women have, on average, 43% more cells in their brains’ olfactory bulbs than men. The fact that few cells are added to the brain throughout life suggests that females are born with this olfactory advantage; it is not developed later.
Research conducted by sensory scientist Marcia Pelchat PhD at Monell Chemical Sciences Center in Philadelphia found that women tend to taste, smell, hear, see colors, and feel textures more accurately than men. Importantly, the research showed that women of childbearing age taste flavors more intensely than younger or older females, and that sensitivity also increased during pregnancy. Ensuring the continuation of the species, of course, makes evolutionary sense.
But what I found most surprising about the Monell studies was the finding that, compared to men, women can more readily increase their sensitivity to odors through practice. With six to ten repeated exposures, women (of reproductive age), not men, increased their sensitivity to an odor by 1,000 to 10,000 times. Said Dr. Charles Wysocki PhD, who conducted the study, “I would speculate that if you had a woman judging wine, early on she would be as sensitive as a man, but with repeated exposure to the same wines, the woman would become able to make finer distinctions.”
This is a fascinating insight for those who might want to engage a motivational woman speaker at your dinner party to discuss wine and sensory science—an excellent way to blend learning and entertainment over wine.
Research by Kathrin Ohla and Johan Lundstrom of Monell and the Department of Clinical Neuroscience Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, respectively, showed that women allocate more attention to potentially noxious nasal stimuli than men do. The researchers also note that women exhibit higher trigeminal nerve sensitivity (the trigeminal system governs sensations such as burning, cooling, and tingling). Further, women are more reactive to nasal stimuli that are perceived as emotional, unpleasant, or threatening.
Some of the original research in the field comes from Yale University, where famous researcher Linda Bartoshuk PhD conducted research that led to the sensory division of the population into non-tasters, tasters, and supertasters. Bartoshuk has shown that about 35% of women but only 15% of men are supertasters. Supertasters have up to four times as many tastebuds as non-tasters. It’s important to note here that supertasters are especially sensitive to bitter-tasting compounds and often have an aversion to strong-tasting substances—Brussels sprouts, espresso, and grapefruit juice, for example.
So, in the end, it appears that women (especially those of childbearing age) do indeed have sensory skills that, on average, give them an advantage over men in wine tasting. But much depends on the individual. And as every good wine taster knows, tasting with someone else who’s driven to excel sensorially (woman or man) is the most exciting kind of tasting of all.
As one of the motivational women speakers, I find that research like this sparks fascinating conversations at events or gatherings—whether they’re professional, casual, or tied to a dinner party.
