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 [email protected] www.timgaiser.com
Blog: www.timgaiser.com/blog.html