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The Budometer is not a wine sales gimmick. It's a test developed by Tim Hanni, one of the country's 15 Masters of Wine, and someone who happens to be very interested in tasting and perception. He was one of the early emissaries of umami, the fifth flavor.
Hanni says his test can help you zero in on the general categories of wines you probably will enjoy. It can effectively narrow your search for wines you like.
Hanni contends that physiological wiring plays a significant part in what kind of wines we like, and that it accounts for the popularity of Robert Parker's ratings as well as the disagreements between Parker and wine expert Jancis Robinson. (Check out Ms. Robinson's column on her experience with Hanni's theory here.)
I haven't dyed my tongue yet, but I have taken the Budometer test which you can do here. Read on for more about Hanni's eye-opening work.
Hanni takes the supertaster (hypertaster, he says, is less inflammatory) - normal taster - non (hypo) taster research of Yale's Linda Bartoshuk and applies it to wine.
He breaks the world down into hyper-sensitive tasters (who feel a burning sensation when they drink high-alcohol wines and prefer wines of delicacy and finesse over power), sensitive tasters (who like wines of richness, intensity and balance - but not too much oak or alcohol) and tolerant tasters (high alcohol wines taste rich and delicious - these guys go for intensity, oak and power). And then there are the sweets, who are very sensitive to bitterness and alcohol, and really like their wine sweet.
To arrive at its answers, the Budometer asks you questions about how things taste to you. Like whether you like salty snacks or Starbucks coffee. I was surprised at my results, but then not so. I don't know that I'm a hypertaster, but my preferences definitely lean to the hyper-sensitive taster for wine. My Significant Other? He's a tolerant taster.
Maybe this is why we don't always like the same wines, although we recently shared a 2005 Pellegrini merlot-cab blend that was lip-smacking good to both of us. So there's also plenty of room for overlap.
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Actually, I am a hybrid. Sensitive ~ Tolerant