This is not just a perception. This is the reality. Women have better taste buds than men. They are far more sensitive to the nuances of food, as a group tend to avoid bitter foods, and often have a harder time than men to enjoy a hot and spicy food. Their olfactory senses (smellers) are better, which is why, in the event of a fire house, a woman is far more likely to wake up smell of smoke, long before her husband sleeps.
These are known facts. Studies from both Harvard and Yale do argument, it is based on the number of taste buds and sensitivity of taste buds in individuals. There are supertasters, regular tasters and nontasters. More women than men tend to be supertasters.
So, answer me this. Why is it that the vast majority of professional wine tasters and critics are men? It certainly is not because they better sniffing or tasting. This is because they have better memories. And it's all due to menopause.
Let me explain.
Robert Parker is known as the guru of wine critics. In essence, it can make or break a winery just his statements. Apparently, his nose knows no peers, his taste buds were magical, his analysis is flawless, and his infallible word, divine, and akin to Scripture.
Horse hockey.
Why risk Parkerphiles bring anger on his head? Because I disagree with him, that's why. (insert neener neener here) I found that more often than not, the wine which he announces as liquid elixir of the gods, in the opinion of my woman, well-developed palate, often exorbitant, scoffed, and too over the top for me. If he declares something like a relentlessly mediocre, I'm busting my budget and buy as much as I can - or can not - afford. He has done that Kosta Browne Pinot Noir a few years ago, and their prices and sales temporarily filled. Thanks Oh Sheep! I'm still drinking bottles I was able to scarf for a song. They, of course, totally perfect.
So what does this have to do with menopause?
Robert Parker - and all the other male critics, in fact - have an almost magical ability to recall an elusive and obscure tastes and smells like bad breath and drink wine. Since hormonal holocaust hit me a few years ago, my brain cells began to self-immolation and a slow decent in estrogen-starved hell. As the tide began to ebb and flow, so my memory
I can not tell you how many times I've had my nose in a glass of wine, and while trying to appear cool, urbane, and learned desperately trying to remember what was in that hell is a set of aromas. That's good, but damned if I can not remember what it is! I can take the glass away from my nose, looks thoughtful quiet, gentle furrow my brow, and put on a smile like the Mona Lisa before some kind of declaration that sounds authentic and convincing. I hope like hell that no one calls me on it. One of my favorite expressions, for example, the "spice box." It is nice, safe, generic, and with any luck, no one will call me on it. I hope that red wine when I have to say.
Does this mean that every time I taste wines that I things up? Of course not! Most of the time everything works as smoothly-oiled engine, where I can remember those long-forgotten scents of crisp, fresh-from-the-oven sugar cookies, Grandma's peach cobbler with that extra noise nutmeg, slightly sulphurous pungency of freshly struck match, or the warm scent barn after the cows were milked and hosed down the dirt floor. There are simply some wines that bring the memories flooding in, so on the nose and palate. And if I taste wine when estrogen tide is at full crest, then I'll pit my nose hairs, palate (and memory) against any of the male critics of wine out there. With confidence, arrogance, and completely total recall. My estrogen and I will bring into question their testosterone levels any day ... even if they have no idea about the havoc that the "change" is revenge. I'm not interested. I am a woman. Hear me roar.
Of course, unlike Robert Parker and his sort, I do not have to make my living based on my senses, where no matter if everything is working together or not, you still must come up with * something * to say. If I had to do and what's left of my hormones do not walk in lockstep, then it really does not matter what I am sniffing and sipping. I still would have to produce convincing, but accurate, view. But what to do if you can not ?!?
You may drink a glass of soy milk and drag the box spice. I think it is.
