The Neuroscience of Wine Tasting

Unlocking the Tasting Strategies of Genius

Tim Gaiser MS

Wine Bloggers’ Conference

August 18, 2012

Initial Thoughts

Today’s Objectives • Discussion of the modeling project

• Introduction of concepts:

– Modeling internal strategies

– Eye accessing cues

– Olfactory memory and imaging

– Submodalities

– The internal image map or grid

– Internal visual constructs for calibrating structure and more

• Project methodology, findings and exercises

The wine:

2008 John Duval Plexus, Barossa

My Background

• Two degrees in music:

– BA Music History: University of New Mexico 1979

– MM Classical Trumpet: University of Michigan 1983

– A short music free-lance career: 1984-1989

• Restaurant industry: 1972 – 1993: everything but kitchen and maître ‘d

• MS diploma 1992

• Court of Master Sommeliers Americas: Education Chair – Education Director 2003-2011

The Project

Teaching Tasting

Is one of the most

rewarding things we do

It can also be one of

the most frustrating …

Teaching Tasting: the Challenge

• Trying to give students our own experiences and vocabulary of wine

• Knowing that everyone has different neurologies, memories and life experiences

• How can we establish commonality so the students can learn easily and quickly using their own experience?

Desired State:

More effective strategies for teaching students tasting

Resources:

The strategies of top tasters

Overall Goals for the Project

• To improve how we teach tasting: – Students learning to taste with more ease in a shorter

period of time

– Using their own internal maps, memories and neurology

• To discover internal strategies of top tasters

• To replicate and use the best strategies in order to teach more effectively

Project Participants:

• Karen MacNeil

• Evan Goldstein MS

• Tracy Kamens Ed.D., DWS, CWE

• Emily Wines MS

• Doug Frost MS MW

• Peter Marks MW

• Brian Cronin MS

• Tim Gaiser MS

Project Genesis:

2009 Film Sessions

Session Results

Eye positions and patterns are vital to experienced tasters

Olfactory memory—image connection

Submodalities:

The structure of internal images can potentially be more important than

the actual content

The existence unique and very personal internal image maps or grids

Internal visual constructs are commonly used for every aspect of

experiencing wine

Why hasn’t someone

figured this out before?

How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not

Anywhere At All?*

*Firesign Theater

Mastery of any skill:

unconscious competence at a very high level

Needed:

the “meta” position -

An observer or guide to help slow down one’s internal thinking processes to elicit strategies

The Ongoing Project:

Modeling top tasters

Goal:

To see if the findings from the 2009 film sessions were consistent

in other tasters

Goal:

To attempt to find commonality of strategies among other

experienced tasters

Goal:

To create sequences using these strategies in order to be able to

teach them to students

Final goal:

To improve how we teach tasting

What is modeling?

Eliciting internal patterns of excellence in behavior and

communication

Modeling Criteria for Tasting Project

• Language usage and patterns

• Eye movements and patterns

• Olfactory image representations

• Internal image maps

• Driver submodalities

• Visual constructs for calibrating structure and other aspects of tasting

How Sessions Were Conducted

• Most sessions recorded and transcribed

• My acting as a guide

• Use of an outline of questions based on the Meta Model:

– Goals

– Evidence procedures

– Needs

– Outcomes

Project Findings

Overall Goals for Tasting

• Contextual-based for all tasters:

– Tasting for pleasure

– Tasting for a buyer’s role

– Tasting for reviewing wine

– Tasting for exam practice

– Tasting for teaching purposes

Evidence: Needs for Tasting

• Adequate light

• Quiet environment

• Odor free

• Tasting wine in batches

• Wines at proper temperatures

• Good glassware

I. Sight

Goals For Looking at Wine

• The appearance of a wine, especially the color, builds instant expectations

• Identify color and use that information to:

– Identify age

– Identify grape variety

– Identify wine making type style

Finding:

Use of Visual Constructs for Determining Color and Age

Visual Constructs for Color

• Tasters commonly identified the color (and often age) of a wine by using internal color swatches created from memories of previously tasted wines

• Swatches were either gradated or segmented into different colors (“Like paint samples.” EW)

• An internal auditory prompt often precedes using construct, i.e., “what color is it?”

Visual Color Construct: Evan Goldstein

• Internal question (“What color is it?”) prompts appearance of flat panel: – Panel directly in front, eye-level, about 2-3 feet

away – The panel is rectangular, about 2’ x 3’ and flat, like

a flat screen monitor

• Colors range changes in a gradual gradation from light red on the left side to deep purple on the right.

• Matches color in the glass to a color in the spectrum

II. Smell:

the Main Event

Findings: Eye Positions

All tasters used a consistent starting eye position or pattern

when smelling wine

Eye Positions:

Background

Taster’s Eye Positions

• Emily Wines: straight ahead (about 3 feet) and slightly down

• Doug Frost: pattern of several very rapid movements: down, centered and moving left to right

• Peter Marks: down and centered

• Brian Cronin: down and center/ slightly left

• Tim Gaiser: down and to the left

Eye Positions & Auditory Prompts

• An internal auditory “prompt” was almost always used following the starting eye position: – “What’s there?” – “What am I smelling?” – “What’s in the glass?” – “What kind of fruit is it?”

• The combination of a starting eye position and

internal auditory question started the smelling sequence

Eye Patterns: Other Findings

• Other eye positions used to access:

– Internal imaging “field ” for creating or comparing images

– Auditory memories about a wine

– To look at a tasting “grid” as a guide

Eye Patterns and Eye Accessing Cues

What Are Eye Accessing Cues?

• 1890: William James -- relationship between eye movements and internal representation in his book Principles of Psychology

• 1970’s: Richard Bandler, John Grinder and colleagues: – Found consistent patterns of eye movements

associated with the activation of different parts of the brain

• Neurologists now call them lateral and vertical eye movements

Eye Accessing Cues Defined

• Visual memory: up and to the left

• Visual imagination: up and to the right

• Auditory memory: lateral eye movements to the left

• Auditory imagination: lateral eye movements to the right

• Internal dialogue: down and to the left

• Kinesthetic (either physical or emotional sensations): down and to the right

Eye Accessing Cues

Important to Note

• Not everyone utilizes the same eye accessing cues

• Some individuals, particularly if left handed, have the pattern reversed

• Everyone was found to use eye patterns on a consistent basis to access various memory functions

Eye Position Exercise

Finding:

The Olfactory Image Connection

Remember a time when wine just smelled like … wine

Statement: “It smells like black cherries.” Question: “How do you know?” “If I had to be you, how would I know? “What would I do?” “What would I experience?” “What would I see?”

Findings: Olfactory Image Connection

• All tasters represented aromas in wine with internal images or a combination of images and words

– Both still images or movies

• Images vary not only in content but structure: size, proximity, color, brightness etc.

• There is an relationship to the intensity of the aroma and the structure of the image

Image Maps

Findings

• All tasters formed an internal map of the aroma images once generated

• The image maps or grids differ-- sometimes radically--from person to person

Project Taster Image Maps

Karen MacNeil

2009 Yalumba Shiraz, South Australia

No Consistent Auditory Prompt

Evan Goldstein

2009 Yalumba Shiraz, South Australia

Auditory Prompt: “What kind of fruit is it?”

Tracy Kamens

2009 Joseph Leitz Riesling Erstes Gewächs

Auditory Prompt: “What’s there?”

Start

Emily Wines Auditory prompt: “What’s there?”

2008 Double Bond Pinot Noir, Wolff Vineyard, Edna Valley

Peter Marks

2009 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

Auditory Prompt: “What’s there?”

Tim Gaiser

Pattern from several wines

Auditory Prompt: “What’s there?”

Start

Conclusion:

Image Maps are Unique and Vary

Dramatically from Person to Person

Olfactory Image Exercise

Partner Up

Front Loading

• The most common aromas of red wine:

– Black fruits: berries, cherries, currants, raspberries

– Red fruits: cherries, cranberries, currants etc.

– Dried fruits: figs, prunes, raisins, dates

– Non-fruit: flowers, herbs, spices

– Wood: vanilla, spices

Exercise

Submodalities

The Structure of Thought and Experience

Findings:

Submodalities are vitally important to the internal imaging process and

tasters’ experience of wine

What are Submodalities?

• Moda: Greek term for the five senses

• Modalities: the inner representation of the five senses: visual (V), auditory (A), kinesthetic (K), olfactory and gustatory

• Submodalities: the structural qualities that each modality can possess

Common Submodalities: Visual

• Black & white or color*

• Proximity: near or far*

• Location*

• Brightness*

• Size of image*

• Three dimensional or flat image*

• Associated / Dissociated

• Focused or Defocused

• Framed or Unframed

• Movie or still image

• If a Movie-Fast/Normal/Slow

*Driver Submodality

Auditory

• Volume: loud or soft

• Distance: near or far

• Internal or external

• Location

• Stereo or mono

• Fast or slow

• Pitch: high or low

• Verbal or tonal

• Rhythm

• Clarity

• Pauses

Kinesthetic

• Intensity: strong or weak

• Area: large vs. small

• Weight: heavy or light

• Location

• Texture: smooth, rough or other

• Constant or intermittent

• Temperature: hot or cold

• Size

• Shape

• Pressure

• Vibration

Findings:

Altering driver submodalities in all tasters changed their experience of

a wine—sometimes dramatically

Driver Submodality Findings

• Karen MacNeil:

– Proximity, Size, 2D vs. 3D, Color vs. black and white

• Emily Wines:

– Proximity, Size, and 2D vs. 3D

• Doug Frost:

– Changing any structural aspect of the images of either fruit or words makes the experience artificial and unreal

• Tim Gaiser

– Proximity, Size, 2D vs. 3D, Color vs. black and white

Submodality Exercise

IV. Palate

Olfactory Confirmation and Structural Calibration

Palate:

Confirmation of aromatics

Do images and image maps change from nose to palate?

Findings: Images and the Palate

• As flavors change or increase/decrease in intensity, the structure of the images changes for most tasters.

• Stronger intensity on the palate vs. nose equals the image increasing in size, brightness or closer proximity or location.

• Less intensity on palate vs. nose equals image decreasing in size, brightness or a more distant proximity or location.

Palate Findings: Image Grid Changes

• Tim Gaiser – Images stay in their grid but may shift in terms

of size, brightness, proximity or 2D vs. 3D

• Emily Wines – Order and size of cards reshuffles from the nose to

the palate. – Stronger flavors causes cards on the “table” to

move closer, increase in brightness and color. – Less intense flavors do the opposite.

Palate: Structural Calibration

Finding:

Tasters commonly used internal visual constructs or scales to

calibrate the structure of wine

Structural Calibration: Tracy Kamens

• For sweetness/dryness: sees scale directly in front of her.

• A continuum with markers from dry on the left to sweet on the right.

• Her attention moves on the scale until the right sweetness level found; a tick (mark) on the scale marks the right point.

Structural Calibration: Emily Wines

• Uses different internal scales for structural elements.

• Acid: yellow ruler about 12” long with markers for low, medium, etc.

– Tastes wine and then points to a mark on the ruler

• Alcohol: 24” blue ruler with a “level”-like bubble that moves to the appropriate mark

Structural Calibration: Emily Wines

• Tannin: piece of wool stretched out, thin at one end and much thicker and larger at the other.

– Texture combined with amount of tannin

• Finish: image of the horizon

– The longer the finish the farther down the horizon can be seen

Structural Calibration: Tim Gaiser

• All structural components calibrated with a 3-4’ “slide rule”-like device with a red button in the middle resting at “medium”

• As I taste the wine the button moves until it matches the amount of acid, alcohol etc., I’m sensing on my palate.

• Internally I point to the marker on the ruler and say “it’s medium-plus” or whatever

Utilization:

How can the findings be used to help students learn?

Teach students to ID color and age in wine with color spectrums/swatches

Help students to become aware of the aroma-image connection that

they already possess and use

Using imaging to install new memories

Practicing Tasting Without Wines –

Disassociated and Associated Rehearsal as a Learning Tool

Teaching students to calibrate structural elements using internal

visual scales/constructs

Final thoughts

Q&A

Thanks

• Richard Bandler and John Grinder for the principles behind this work.

• Tim and Kris Hallbom, Robert Dilts and Suzi Smith for their superb instruction and guidance.

• Taryn Voget of the Every Day Genius Institute for her help and guidance in the DVD project

Thanks to Project Participants:

• Karen MacNeil

• Evan Goldstein MS

• Tracy Kamens Ed.D., DWS, CWE

• Emily Wines MS

• Doug Frost MS MW

• Peter Marks MW

• Brian Cronin MS

• Tim Gaiser MS

Tim Gaiser, MS tgaiser@earthlink.net www.timgaiser.com

Blog: www.timgaiser.com/blog.html