It seems foolish to emulate Harvard’s president in making ill-advised generalizations about gender. Still, I’ll go out on a limb by suggesting that most woman are not equally matched with men in their sensitivity to the smells and tastes of wine – women tend to be flat-out superior, in my opinion. This is a phenomenon I first observed in my own mother, who could pick up on the slight funk of an old Burgundy just as she could sense a dirty undershirt under my bed from 20 paces. And women are no slouches at making wine, either.

These thoughts arose last Wednesday evening as I sampled six quite different wines set out at Cassis, a friendly downtown restaurant on tiny Stone Street. Each wine was from a different country, each vinified from different grapes. Their only common thread was that all had come from the hands of women winemakers. The tasting, at which I was a guest, was sponsored by the local chapter of Women for Winesense, a group billing itself as a “worldwide grassroots organization for women interested in wine.”

“Winetasting is just a matter of paying attention to the Four S’s,” said Tara Q. Thomas, our tasting guide. The Four S’s, she explained, are “see, swirl, smell, sip.” That’s exactly what Ms. Thomas does, hundreds of times each week, as managing editor and tasting panel member of Wine & Spirits magazine. Ms. Thomas also authored “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wine Basics (Alpha Books, $18.95).

I saw, swirled, and smelled the first unidentified wine. Its juicyfruit aroma seemed to be pure muscat. But the wine, called “Crios de Susana Balbo,” was actually 100% Torrontes, an Argentinian grape. The wine was zestily fruited in the mouth, backed up by bracing acidity. It was a perfect aperitif wine made by Ms. Balbo, who is that rare species, an Argentine female winemaker.

“Crois,” explained Ms. Thomas, means “offspring.” This Torrontes was the offspring of the winemaker’s age-worthy “reserve” wines, and was meant for drinking in its youth. Crios refers, as well, to Ms. Balbo’s own two children. “It’s not easy to be a woman winemaker in Argentina,” said Ms. Thomas. “It’s still a macho country.”

Argentina isn’t the only one. In Israel, for example, where women can be judges and generals, I once met a woman who had returned home from America with a degree in winemaking from the University of California. But when she applied for a job at Israel’s largest winery, she was told to forget about her career path. Since the grape harvest corresponded with the Jewish high holidays, the male elders explained to her, surely she’d want to be home doing the holiday cooking instead of making wine. Luckily, she found a job at an enlightened winery.

The second white wine of the tasting, Domaine Roxane Matsa’s Regional Wine of Pallini from Greece, had the upfront grassy character of Sauvignon Blanc, but it was backed up by an uncharacteristic almond note that gave fullness to the wine. That came, Ms. Thomas said, from Assyrtiko, Greece’s best native white grape. Greece, too, Ms. Thomas suggested, is not an easy place for a woman to succeed as winemaker. Yet Roxanne Matsa, like Susana Balbo in Argentina, has risen to the top tier of her country’s male-dominated wine community.

The final white wine was, as Ms. Thomas put it, “rich but with racy acidity, floral but not over the top.” It was Evolution No. 8 from Sokol Blosser, the pioneering Oregonian winery whose president is Susan Sokol Blosser. Thirty-five years after starting the winery with her husband, Ms. Sokol-Blosser has handed off the winemaking chores so that she can focus on being winery president. But she still keeps a close eye on the wine. Blended from no less than nine different white wine grapes, Evolution is Sokol Blosser’s most popular white wine, with 35,000 cases produced.

I met the Spaniard Maria Martinez-Sierra when she visited New York in the late 1970s after being named winemaker at Bodegas Montecillo, a venerable Rioja winery. I wondered how this petite woman with large soft eyes would fare in a world of men. The answer is, year in and out, that the men of Rioja are scrambling to keep up with her success in making top-value wines.We tasted her Roija Crianza 2001, a dark, fruity wine made from traditional tempranillo that was true to its region and sells for a mere $8. Next came the Lungarotti Rubesco from Umbria, made by the Lungarotti sisters, Teresa and Chiara. Rubesco is a fleshy blend of Sangiovese and Canaiolo which tends to round out if you leave the bottle open overnight.

The tasting ended with a red wine that had the bracing, New World scent of eucalyptus. It was Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 from Australia. Sue Hodder, Wynns’ head winemaker, vinifies this intense yet soft wine from distinctive volcanic soil called “terra rosa.” “This is a pretty in-your face wine,” said Ms. Thomas. “Very vanilla toned, very forward, but not slutty.”

Ms. Thomas confessed that, until she started a list, she had no idea how many women were winemakers and winery owners. As of that night, she was up to 53 women from 12 countries and still counting. Not on her list, for example, was Signe Zoller, a self-described “former housewife” who makes upwards of 1 million cases of modestly priced, impeccably calibrated wine at Meridian Vineyards of California. At the immodestly priced level, nobody does it better than Helen Turley, winemaking equivalent of guru chef Thomas Keller. Several of Ms. Turley’s chardonnays, under the Marcassin label, currently fetch over $400 per bottle if you can find them.

The most civilized way I can think of to experience wines made by women is to dine at Annisa, a tiny restaurant at 13 Barrow Street in the Village where big flavors reign. Coowner Jennifer Schism has created a list of 83 wines, all made by women and selected to harmonize with the food of chef Anita Lo. Last Saturday evening, the wine at my table was the white Savennieres “Les Caillardieres” 2002 made by Domaine du Closel in the Loire Valley, a superlative property long in the hands of women.

Women for Winesense meets monthly. Men are welcome to become members. One need not be in the wine trade to join. For more information, visit www.womenforwinesense.org.

WINE HUNTING

THE CRIOS DE SUSANA BALBO TORRONTES ($19.99) and WYNNS COONAWARRA ESTATE CABERNET SAUVIGNON ($14.99) are at Union Square Wine & Spirits, 212-675-8500. DOMAINE ROXANA MATSA WHITE WINE is at Grand Wine & Liquor, 718-728-2520. SOKOL BLOSSER EVOLUTION and LUNGAROTTI RUBESCO are at Garnet Wines, 212-772-3211. BODEGAS MONTECILLO CRIANZA is at Sherry-Lehmann, 212-838-7500. 1052 2002 1203 2013