The science of the Winecroft Taste Test
Although it’s over before you can pop a cork, our short taste test is based on 80 years of scientific research and will accurately pinpoint your true wine preferences. It means we can help you explore the styles you like and introduce new styles we know you’ll love. You’ll never be at a loss as to which wine to choose again.
What’s behind it?
The origins are way back in 1930s America, when a research chemist, Arthur L Fox, found that some people found a compound called phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), to be bitter tasting while others thought it was tasteless. Together with a geneticist, Albert Blakeslee, they set out the idea that, genetically, we all have different taste sensitivities.
In the 1960s, Roland Fischer made the link between the ability to taste bitter compounds to food preferences and body type – an idea that was developed by Linda Bartoshuk. Her 1993 work, ‘The Biological Basis of Food Perception and Acceptance’ is a bit of a mouthful, but it was quite revolutionary and, crucially, caught the eye of the wine industry. Further academic work was completed to better understand how taste works – with an emphasis on how that knowledge could be applied to wine.
And?
Some of us have fewer than 500 taste buds, while others have more than 10,000. Now we know that the number of taste buds you have determines the food and drink you like. The fewer taste buds you have the more tolerant of strong flavours and bitterness you are and vice versa.
In 2010, one of London’s wine merchants, Bibendum, put all of this research together and developed a taste test to help match wines to peoples’ taste bud make up. We have adapted this test to form the on-line Winecroft Taste Test.
How does the Winecroft Taste Test work?
Each of your answers to our short series of questions is given a score, which, once calculated reveals your taste profile. We then use our own knowledge, expertise and unrivalled access to the wine lists of Michelin starred restaurants to find you wines that match your taste profile and that we believe you will love.
