Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

Wife is a churchgoer. Not me.
So I often prepare a decent lunch lunch on Sunday morning and open a bottle of wine to go along with it.
Wife tastes blind.

Today it was leg of NZ lamb with a bottle of 2000 Ch. Brillette.

Wife says, Q. "Hmmmmm. Cabernet?
A. Yes.
Q. Bordeaux?
A. Yes.
Q. Hmmmmmm. Hot year.
A. Yes.
Q. 2000?
A.Yes
Q. Médoc, but more like Margaux or St. Julien than Pauillac?
A. Almost. A Moulis (2nd smallest appellation in Bordeaux).

Times like this one respects one's wife.

Best regards,
Alex R.

Don't worry, Alex, that was god speaking through her.

The closest I get Alex is, "yeah, it's nice"...

Closest I get to my better half appreciating a wine, not me respecting her, although I'll take that

Do what I do, Phil. At family dinners one must at least rate, and preferably comment on, a wine before I'll pour the next one.

I hope this does not sound sexist, and certainly is not intended that way, but I believe that in general women are better tasters than men. Many women, especially of prior generations, simply were more exposed to scents and tastes, through perfumes, lotions, oils, baths and cooking. My wife, sister and mom are far better tasters than me. While I have greater context as a wine geek, they pick up things aromas and tastes better than me. Noticed that last night as well with one of the ladies in our dinner group, who is an avid amateur chef, and she picked up a few notes that I did not, but once she mentioned it, I went "aha".

How's the vineyard coming along, Phil?

My better half either likes a wine "a lot" or not at all. She may observe that a wine is tannic or acidic. Flavors, scents? Fugetabboudit.

Alex, if she's better than you, to guess blind, it is probably because she sampled more than you...

Stirring the pot a bit.

Nic

Hound, thanks for asking, I had a mildew hit last year which wiped out the crop. The weather wasn't the best anyway is it happened. However, as I noted on my blog: http://an-english-vineyard.blogspot.co.uk/ (which I intend to start using again) I'm determined to make wine this year that I can drink, having not accomplished this yet to date. I've got some wet sulphur which I intend to spray against the mildew.

Interesting that comment about women being better tasters, I'd agree that if one sex spends more time smelling things (like perfumes) then that would probably be passed on in their genes... but why it'd be passed just to women I'm not sure, maybe it's less hereditary and more nurture in smelling things as they grow up.

Stefan, I admire your extortion-style approach but I don't think I'd get very far with it in mine and Rachel's relationship... the lady's not for turning

The question whether women tend to be better tasters than men has been addressed in the scientific literature, most notably by Linda Bartoshuk at Yale. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

for a popular write up and the papers referenced there for the science.

I thought Larry Summers had the last word on this.

The supertaster gene and resulting lower threshold for certain items is interesting, but I'm not sure it is all that relevant to wine tasting. A lot of wine "tasting" and evaluation is olfactory, and supertasters aren't endowed with greater olfactory discrimination or memory. In fact, being a supertaster may be a liability in evaluating wine. Hypersensitivity to particular elements will skew a supertaster's perception of the wine in a way that wont be shared by non-supertasters. Things that would put off a supertaster might not even be noticeable by the rest of us mere mortals, so supertasters might be unable to enjoy the complex subtleties of some of the world's best wines because their olfactory senses would be overwhelmed by their oversensitive tasting apparatus.

Art, was it Larry Summers that got in trouble for saying women taste better than men, or was that Larry Flynt?