Women have better olfactory perception for wine aromas

Santa Catarina State University (UDESC), College of Agriculture and Life Science, Av. Luiz de Camões, 2090, CEP 88520-000, Lages, SC, Brazil

^a e-mail: douglaswurz@hotmail.com

Abstract

The objective of this work was to verify the influence of the gender on the olfactory perception of aromas found in the wines, as well as to identify the aromatic groups most perceived by men and women. Twenty different aromas of different aromatic classes described in the wines were used: fruity, spices, wood, herbaceous, floral, buttery, defects. The different aromatic groups were packed in Erlenmeyer glasses wrapped with aluminum paper in order to avoid the visualization of the aromas by the participants. Fifty people, 25 men and 25 women, aged between 21 and 65 years, were ramdomly separated in groups of 10 people to participate of the evaluation. The influence of the gender on the ability to identify aromas was verified. Women matched 56.8% of the aromas, while men matched 44.6%. In relation to the aromatic class, a greater index of the feminine gender in all the aromatic classes was verified, being spices the group of aromas that women most perceived, with 80.6% of hits, followed by the floral aromas with 50% accuracy. For men, the aromatic class with the highest index of accuracy was also the spices, however, with a success rate of 58.4%, followed by the herbaceous group with 38.2% of correct answers. Both females and males obtained high scores for the group of wine defects (acetic acid and ethyl acetate), 85.2% and 81.0%, respectively, overcoming the other aromatic classes. Buttery aromas were the ones least recognized by women, with 30.8% of hits, whereas the least perceived aroma for men were the floral ones, with no hits observed in any group of participants. The results found in this study show that there are differences in olfactory perception between men and women, and this factor, in addition to the wine service temperature, wine glass type, olfactory memory, must also be considered in sensory analysis. Female gender has a greater ability to identify aromas in relation to the male gender, since women have a greater number of cells in the olfactory bulb, which is the brain region responsible for smell detection.