Sublimelle wines for women?

A range of wines designed for and marketed to women? This is the claim of French company Sublim-elle who assert:

Because scientific research suggests that women have naturally a more refined sense of smell and taste than do men…
Because many wine experts recognize a major difference in the way women and men appreciate wines…
Because there is no reason for women to resign to purchase wines marketed for male preferences…
Because woman is Sublime and play a fundamental role in society’s evolution to a more balanced, peaceful and humanist…
Because of all these reasons, a range of French wines, dedicated to woman, was conceived.
This range is a selection of silky and harmonious wines combining delicacy and a lot of nuances of aromas and flavours; wines that tend to reflect the image of the women and their contribution towards a more peaceful, balanced, elaborated and tolerant society.

I’m not sure if this is a truth, or it is clever marketing, or just a tad patronising. In 15 years of selling wines direct to the public, I am not convinced that there is a clear distinction between the tastes or preferences of men and women. People’s tastes range so widely in any case, and the variation tends to be more associated with customer’s experience of wine. I (and my wife) certainly started out enjoying cheap sweet Barsac and light fruity German wines, and even now when I greatly enjoy complex heavy reds. there are ocassions when a simple clean Chenin Blanc is what I prefer. I know women who much prefer big beefy reds to their partner’s choice of floral soft whites.

The range of wines on offer (from Chateau Select) include Rhoine, Loire, Burgundy, Alsace and Vins de Pays d’Oc

Chateau Select is an online wine club (free membership) set up by Bill Warry who specialises in France and Australia wines

My love of wine, the regions in which it is made and the often extraordinary but wonderful characters who make it, led to my starting the business more as a hobby than a career. People often say to me that they are not wine connoisseurs and don’t know about wines. I tell them that it is their enjoyment of wines that is important…..

What experience has brought me is, I believe, an appreciation of what makes for quality and value in a wine. Year after year I’d been saying to myself, “I really must try importing some wine from France, then one year I took the plunge. After tasting nearly twenty different wines one afternoon in the village of St Chinian (near Beziers), I tentatively brought home a pallet load of wines on the premise that if I could not persuade potential clients to trust my judgement then “at least I could enjoy drinking the wine with my friends !”

Chateau Select Wine Club, Stafford House. 42 Mill Green Road. Mitcham. Surrey CR4 4HY
Tel:020 8995 7567 Fax:020 8994 9144 e-mail: info@chateauselect.com

These wines will be on taste at the Taste of London event in Regents Park 19-22 June 2008

Chateau Select will be at the