Reaching for a sweet white wine may reveal more about you than you would like, according to researchers in Australia and the United Kingdom (UK).

 

The study led by Dr Anthony Saliba – a Sensory Scientist with the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre (NWGIC) at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Australia - found a preference for sweet taste in white wine was linked to a higher level of impulsiveness and a lower level of openness compared with those who preferred a dry white wine.

 

Dr Saliba was joined by researchers Ms Kate Wragg and Dr Paul Richardson from the Brain, Behaviour and Cognition Group, Psychology at the Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.

 

“No other personality trait investigated in this study, such as venturesomeness, empathy, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism, was found to be significantly different for the sweet versus dry preference groups,” said Dr Saliba.

 

Forty-five men and women with an average age of 43 were recruited from around the Sheffield Hallam University and a local golf club at Sheffield. After a wine preference test, the 22 men and 23 women were separated into either a sweet preference group or dry preference group. They then underwent a range of psychologically validated personality tests.

 

“We wanted to further explore a new area of research into the influence of personality traits on taste preferences,” said Dr Saliba.

 

“Previous studies examining the influence of personality on taste preference have simply asked participants to self-report their preferences. An obvious disadvantage of this kind of measure is that socially desirable answering tendencies can be fairly strong.

 

“This research shows that our food and beverage selections reveal a little about who we are. It may be that our taste preference starts influencing our personality from birth, so the next important step of this work is to understand how our taste preference might shape impulsive behaviours – those thought to be related to obesity,” said Dr Saliba.

 

The study, ‘Sweet taste preference and personality traits using a white wine’, is published in the journal Food Quality and Preference.

 

The NWGIC at CSU at Wagga Wagga in NSW is a partnership between the University, the NSW Department of Industry and Investment and the NSW Wine Industry Association.