Her Nose Knows Better than His

April 27, 111 Wednesday

Wine Talk: The (female) nose By ADAM MONTEFIORE27/04/2011 2 groundbreaking studies show that women  consistently outperform men in matters of  odor identification and smell, and thus make  better wine tasters.

Quite apart from historical prejudice or religion, wine has always been  seen as a men’s preserve. Work in the vineyard and winery was heavy,  physical, and took up long, unsocial hours. As a result, the vineyard  and winery became a place for men only. Furthermore the enjoyment of wine became a man thing. There were  men-only drinking clubs and tasting events where men gathered to  share Parker scores and boast about which wines they had the previous  night. In England the port was passed around the table, but only after  the women had left the room. However women came to the fore in a very important facet of wine enjoyment. They were proved to be better tasters. There were two groundbreaking studies, one in Cardiff and the other in Pennsylvania, which both showed that women consistently outperformed men in matters of odor identification and smell. Furthermore another study at Yale identified that about 25% of the population had the potential to be super tasters, with the ability to taste more sensitively than the remainder of the population.  The socalled super tasters had more taste buds  and a greater sensitivity to taste differences. The researchers found that women were the majority in this category. Furthermore, it was realized that men tend to categorize wine using the  left side of their brain. Scores, ratings and all the details surrounding  the wine are important. Women are more likely to use the right side of the brain, which is more  sensory, creative and artistic. A man is generally interested in the  minutiae of the wine. A woman is more interested in the taste. Marketeers were slow to realize that the bulk of wine purchases are  not made by men, but by women in supermarkets. So women are better tasters than men, and they buy more wine than  men, but it still took a few women pioneers and a few centuries to break  the glass ceiling in the wider wine world. However, in the last 30 years,  there has been a change. There has also been a breakthrough in Israel. The hardest nut to crack  was that of winemaker. Women could not be part of the actual winemaking  in a kosher winery, as only Orthodox men are permitted to touch the wine,  plant and machinery during the production process. However, they could  be active in the vineyards and take the same managerial role in a winery  as any winemaker in a kosher winery. The pioneer was Tali Sandovski, who became a winemaker at the  Golan Heights Winery in 1986 and then studied at UC Davis. She is  the winery’s longest serving winemaker. Other women were to follow.  Naama Mualem studied in California and Australia before taking over  as winemaker at Dalton Winery. Another female winemaker is Irit  Shenk Boxer who works at Barkan-Segal, which is managed by  her father. The first female “owner winemaker” was Orna Chillag, whose  Chillag Winery was founded in 1998. Now there is also Tzina  Avidan of Avidan Winery, and Roni Saslove partners her father  in making the wines at Saslove Winery. Women also broke into management of the larger wineries.  Ronit Badler became the first managing director of an Israeli  winery, managing Galil Mountain Winery. Anat Rushansky Levy is currently managing director of Golan  Heights Winery. Carmi Lebenstein was firstly sales manager and later marketing  manager of Carmel Mizrahi in the 1990s, and she recently looked  after marketing at Barkan. The current marketing manager at Carmel Winery is Ifat Rozenberg  Moshan. The previous marketing managers of Galil Mountain  and Binyamina Winery were respectively Carmit Ehrenreiche  and Timna Shitreet. Many of the sommeliers in Israel are women. Hadas Ezer was  Israel’s first woman sommelier of note, at the Keren Restaurant  in Jaffa. She is now an importer of fine burgundies to Israel.  Ruti Ben Israel studied in Italy to become a sommelier and  returned to Israel to become manager of Carmel’s Center for  Wine Culture at Zichron Ya’acov. Debbie Shoham is education  manager of the Golan Heights Winery. Mira Eitan was Israel’s main female wine journalist, writing in  the past for Globes and Ma’ariv. She then edited the Wine  and Gourmet magazine for 5 years. She is now the media  and communications manager for Carmel Winery and part  of their wine development department. There is a current initiative by Carmel to organize regular  tasting and cultural events for women only. Each meeting  is over-subscribed. More and more women are having the confidence to participate, taste wine and give an opinion. The development of the women consumer and the flowering of female wine  experts is the next trend already under way. So the glass ceiling is well and truly cracked here too.  Thankfully women feature strongly in Israeli wine today  and the industry is better for their presence and expertise.