No gender difference on
wine
Andrea Immer, corporate director for beverage programs at Starwood
Hotels & Resorts, who is one of nine women in the world with
the title of Master Sommelier, agreed that the red wine trend
continues to get a boost from the French paradox. Immer, the
beverage director at New York's Windows on the World and the
Rainbow Room before joining Starwood last year, said she did not
think there was a difference in wine preference between men and
women. "I don't really think it's a gender thing," she said.
Bill Boywid, manager of Buster's, a large liquor store in
Memphis, Tennessee, said he did not see a difference in preferences
between men and women. "Women are the majority of our shoppers and
they buy it all." Merlot is very popular. Gary Fisch, co-owner of
Shoppers of Madison and Shoppers of Livingston, New Jersey gourmet
food and wine stores, said the majority of wine buyers in his store
on weekdays are women and they are also definitely buying red
wines. He said he thought much of the change had to do with the
emphasis on pairing food with wine. "In the last couple of years,
women have become much more discerning and they now buy wine as
part of the meal, not as a cocktail." For example, in the summer
women buy wines to go with outdoor cookouts at their homes. "They
are drinking big Cabernets," Fisch said. "When they ask what to
serve with salmon, when I suggest Pinot Noir, they jump at it." He
said the big difference between male and female buying habits is
that men care about how the experts rate wines. "But women come in
looking for a good glass of wine."
So the bottom line, as you can see, is that women regard taste
as the deterring factor in their wine purchase, not what an ad or
the men in their life tell them and that includes the male
"experts."
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