Welcome to the third edition of ‘InterWined in Conversation’: Recorded live at the Wine+ Expo in London with our guest Yanis Taieb, CEO of the French wine export company Winesight, responsible for a new range of wine dedicated to women called Sublimelle.

To listen to the full 14-minute interview, be sure to click on the new InterWined Audio icon in the upper right-hand corner. Alternately, you can read extracts from the conversation below.

InterWined: why do women need their own wine; why does there need to be wine dedicated to women?

Yanis Taieb: Because there are many studies, and also we made a lot of experiments, showing that women have a different appreciation of wine. They are tasting the wine differently than men; they are looking for different criteria than men in terms of wine. The first thing for women is the scent, the nez [the nose], is very important. If the scent of the wine is not good a woman is not going to appreciate a wine…so this is the first point. The second point is a lot of experiments show that women prefer silky and supple wine and fruity wine generally also…for a woman, who is able to distinguish the aromas, it is important that there is a big variety, a big range, of aromas in the wine.

IW: If it’s simply a matter of smell, of sensation, of taste, why couldn’t women simply know that, they like they Chardonnay for instance, they like this make, why would they need a range dedicated to them?

YT: We built the brand, so all the wine must have certain characteristics…There is a sort of logic in the range that turns around silky, harmoneous wine with large aromatic aspects. We think that it’s very important for the wine to have this distinction and common point. Otherwise, it’s not a range.

IW: OK, well, we’ve tried your Sauvignon Blanc [2007] together…you say yours has…there’s a sort of common thread — a theme — to your range, what makes your Sauvignon different from others?

YT: It’s the best Sauvignon…no, no…I’m joking. No; I mean this Sauvignon is very fruity. The nose is very nice. It’s very open and easy to understand. Of course, there is some very nice Sauvignon from Cloudy Bay, for example, in New Zealand. But the fact is that, most of the time — because I tested a lot of Sauvignon from New Zealand — and I’m not the only one to say this, the nose is very nice and, after, in the mouth, it is very short. This one has the nose; and, at the same time, we have the promise of the nose also in the mouth. It’s long; it’s fruity; it’s harmoneous. It doesnt finish quickly, which is very important…especially for women. This is the harmony of the wine. It’s like music.

IW: You have 10 whites in the range, and 6 of them are Chardonnay…and it isn’t simply because Chardonnay is preferred by women?

YT: No; no…the fact is, we are based in Burgundy. In Burgundy, we have only Chardonnay. So there is mainly Chardonnay. But we will complete the range with Alsace wine — with Riesling for example — it’s already done with Pinot Gris…we should have also some Chinon…we are not stopped in Chardonnay. And we didn’t notice — we know that women prefer Chardonnay — but we didn’t do it because of this.

IW: It wasn’t a conscious decision that 60% needs to be Chardonnay…

YT: No; no we don’t have figures like this…I mean, a lot of things are interesting in wine…and we don’t want to put figures on this.

IW: And how did you come across the name Sublimelle. What am I meant to think?

YT: Sublime, because we think women are sublime… We were very happy to have a chance to develop a range for women. We think that, if you see the world of wine, it is very male-oriented. We are not for a society male-oriented. We are for balance in terms of responisibility and power between men and women. Because we think the world should be like this, it will bring a lot of new ideas. First, I must say that we made a marketing study…we are here to find the right product for the right place. We are a company; this is the first point. We noticed that the most expanding market was the woman’s market. Maybe you have more precise figures than me, but I think that in the UK it is 65% of the consuming market in wine is women. And everywhere in the world is the same. So, at the beginning, it is marketing strategy. But, we are not only focusing only on marketing. As I said, the conviction is very important for us. So we won’t do something that we are not convinced of…

Stay tuned for reviews of three of the wines featured in the Sublimelle range, including the Mercurey Blanc, Mâcon, and Monthélie 1er Cru, later in the week.

In the meantime, to sample any of the wines from the 26-strong Sublimelle range of wines, visit Chateau Select.

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