Jan

The Sublimelle Solution

Jacob Gaffney in Red Wines, Pinot Noir, Grenache, White Wines, Chardonnay France, Sublimelle

Here at InterWined.com, we try to give everyone in the wine industry a fair voice. Our third edition of ‘InterWined In Conversation’ focused on the newly launched French wine for women range, Sublimelle.

The interview gave plenty of attention to the product designs, ideas, and marketing, while reserving any comment or criticism.

The makers of Sublimelle define their range of wines — sourced from across France — as made to appeal specifically to women, much more so than men. The thought process, according to the wine maker, is that women have different tastes, with gender-specific perceptions of both aesthetics and senses. And this wine comes as some sort of liberator to these shackles of male-centric vino veritas, “because there is no reason for women to resign to purchase wines marketed for male preferences,” according to the Sublimelle website. At least, not any more.

It’s an intriguing concept. Different and, perhaps, bold.

InterWined received several bottles for review. Among these, a white wine from Mercurey, an ‘old vines’ Mâcon, and a pricey Monthélie Premier Cru, as well as a varietally titled “Grenache.” Now, there is nothing wrong with the wines. In fact, all are made to a high standard of quality; but each lacks an overall identity to the land in which its grapes grow — and one single review can be almost applied to all: elegant, balanced, clean, and boring. At least that’s the way it is for InterWined.com, who, in fairness, as men, are the last demographic Sublimelle expects to sell to.

At any rate, the brand begs the question of why would women want to buy predictable wines? Will women actually gather in groups to display Sublimelle and declare to each other, “this wine is meant for us, just look at the pretty wine labels!” Rather, wouldn’t purchasing Sublimelle display one’s own ignorance on the subject of wine?

“Oh, you bought that wine that we all can expect to taste elegant, balanced, clean and boring.”

Is the wine industry so dominated by men? And, are the wines themselves, sitting on supermarket shelves, actually so penis-heavy that such a wine is necessary? Sublimelle seems to think so, and has offered their brand as a solution, by using this as its unique selling point

Yet, in a blind tasting with women hosted by InterWined, the amateur wine drinkers compared a wine from Ribera del Duero, made with Tempranillo (£10), to the Sublimelle Monthélie Premier Cru (£22). They sampled the Sublimelle first and were told nothing other than, ‘which do you prefer?’ after tasting both. Each woman preferred the wine from Ribera del Duero.

The jump in logic may not be that the Tempranillo was made in a male-centric fashion, but that, at least among our group of women, taste preferences do not appear to be so unequivocally gender specific.

At the end of this unscientific experiment, and perhaps the most painfully telling result of InterWined’s critique, one of the women immediately set off for Waitrose to buy a bottle of the Ribera del Duero to accompany her dinner that evening.

And so it is in this regard that Sublimelle did not succeed in convincing her of the wine she should prefer.

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