A bitter pill for male wine snobs: women have the better palate

♦ For any man who has ever considered himself a good judge of a fine vintage, it is a sobering discovery: women make better wine tasters than men.

A study has found that, while men have a stronger emotional reaction to wines than women, the female palate is more discerning.

Researchers asked 208 volunteers to take part in blind taste tests of six wines: two whites, one rosé and three reds.

Dr Caroline Chaya, of the Technical University of Madrid, who led the study, concluded: “In general, men reported higher scores on significant emotions for all the wines. Although women gave generally lower ratings than men, they reported greater differences between the wines.”

The study, published in the scientific journal Food Quality and Preference, also examined the effects of age on the emotional response to wine tasting, with older drinkers more likely to enjoy any glass of wine whatever its attributes.

The researchers said: “All of the wines evoked significantly higher scores in older adults than in middle-aged and young adults for most emotional terms. However, young adults showed higher discrimination between wines than the other age groups, in terms of emotional responses.”

Light, floral and fruity wines were found to elicit positive emotions among the study’s participants, while liquorice, clove and vanilla notes engendered a neutral or negative emotional response.

The study may give oenophiles cause to reconsider traditional gender roles, with men being offered wine to taste in restaurants more often than women. Last year, only one of 13 inductees to the Court of Master Sommeliers was a woman.