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Humans

Your saliva may determine which types of wine you prefer

People from Chinese or Western backgrounds reported having different tastes in wines, which may partly come down to the concentrations of their salivary proteins

By Soumya Sagar

5 May 2023

Wine drinkers have a lot of options when choosing their preferred variety

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

Variations in our salivary proteins may explain why different people can like different wines. Researchers have linked the concentrations of two types of proteins to how intense wine drinkers find a wine’s notes, such as fruity or floral, and their preferences for the alcoholic drink.

A person’s wine preferences may at least partially come down to their cultural background, knowledge of the drink and individual taste. But Kate Howell at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and her colleagues…

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