I’ve heard various anecdotes about celebrities and professionals insuring parts of their body for huge amounts of money before, but I don’t really recall a story of anyone insuring their tongue….. until now. I recently read about a young lady, not in the wine business, but who works as a taster in the baby food industry. (When you think about it there must be tasters for pretty much every product that we eat and drink, and I think I even recall hearing about a man who tastes pet foods for a living!) Anyway, the significance of this story is that this lady has recently had her tongue insured for £1 million (about $1.6 million).

I have claimed in the past that my own sense of taste/smell is perhaps more acute than many people that I know, simply because in my line of work as a buyer, I used it much more than the average person, and therefore, over time, it was simply ‘educated’ to become more sensitive. (The human sense of smell is, generally speaking, highly underutilised and can be trained over time). In the case of this baby food taster however, this young lady was actually born with a more sensitive tongue, with double the number of taste receptors. Obviously this is quite a rare genetic condition, having 10,000 taste buds on her tongue, instead of the more usual 5,000, and it goes without saying that her sense of taste is very highly tuned. She can detect extremely small and subtle differences in the flavours of food – her tongue is therefore the primary tool of her job and is no doubt why it is so valuable to her.

Of course there are many similarities between her work and that of a wine taster. As a part of her daily routine she will avoid eating foods with strong flavours, such as curry or garlic, and drinking coffee before a tasting session. In my own case I would also avoid wearing aftershave and other less obvious things like trying to ensure a good gap between cleaning my teeth and tasting my first wine of the day. Indeed, it’s probably best to taste two or three wines to get your palate tuned before you make any definitive judgements.

I’ve heard various anecdotes about celebrities and professionals insuring parts of their body for huge amounts of money before, but I don’t really recall a story of anyone insuring their tongue….. until now. I recently read about a young lady, not in the wine business, but who works as a taster in the baby food industry. (When you think about it there must be tasters for pretty much every product that we eat and drink, and I think I even recall hearing about a man who tastes pet foods for a living!) Anyway, the significance of this story is that this lady has recently had her tongue insured for £1 million (about $1.6 million).

I have claimed in the past that my own sense of taste/smell is perhaps more acute than many people that I know, simply because in my line of work as a buyer, I used it much more than the average person, and therefore, over time, it was simply ‘educated’ to become more sensitive. (The human sense of smell is, generally speaking, highly underutilised and can be trained over time). In the case of this baby food taster however, this young lady was actually born with a more sensitive tongue, with double the number of taste receptors. Obviously this is quite a rare genetic condition, having 10,000 taste buds on her tongue, instead of the more usual 5,000, and it goes without saying that her sense of taste is very highly tuned. She can detect extremely small and subtle differences in the flavours of food – her tongue is therefore the primary tool of her job and is no doubt why it is so valuable to her.

Of course there are many similarities between her work and that of a wine taster. As a part of her daily routine she will avoid eating foods with strong flavours, such as curry or garlic, and drinking coffee before a tasting session. In my own case I would also avoid wearing aftershave and other less obvious things like trying to ensure a good gap between cleaning my teeth and tasting my first wine of the day. Indeed, it’s probably best to taste two or three wines to get your palate tuned before you make any definitive judgements.