Sweetness and light

Here's the thing - apparently a lot of people think sweetness in wine is not good, so they look down on consumers who drink sweet wines. These sweet critics are partially responsible for the poor commercial state of classic German wines (based, as they are, on a balanced palate of sweetness and acidity) but they also make ordinary folk feel bad about their choice. Indeed, some years ago I was gently slagged in a well-known NOffLA off-licence for buying Blue Nun - "There's a Master of Wine and he drinks Blue Nun!" - but imagine if the punter in the queue behind me had just picked up a bottle of BN as well? They'd think to themselves, why spend my money here?
This is interesting for two little reasons - one is that most people have no idea how sweet most wines are: [yellow tail] shiraz has about 12 g/L residual sugar! This is as sweet as most Champagnes and close to a lot of usually slagged off German wines.
The second reason is that my MW mate Tim Hanni has just been involved in a study which shows that people who like sweetness are often extremely sensitive tasters. Tim is, to put it politely, mad but in a very good way and he is a real champion of trying to bring ordinary people along on the great wine journey - he never looks down at people for their choices and he spends a lot of time trying to understand why these choices are made.
There are people who are so-called super-tasters - they experience bitter tastes very strongly and often need to ameliorate the bitterness with salt or sugar. So, many of the people who find it easier to drink a blush Zinfandel amy well be more sensitive tasters than those of us who look down on them for not buying classed growth claret - that bitter, astringent experience.
So, lessons learned today - every one is entitled to their choice but don't tell me you don't like sweet wine when you drink [yellow tail] or Hardy's Stamp (8.1 g/L) or Wolf Blass Eaglehawk (10.6 g/L) or any of many other similar wines.