T Gaiser TEXSOM Tasting Seminar Notes

Tasting Focus:
Elements of Perception and Style
Tim Gaiser, MS
TEXSOM
August 12th, 2013

www.timgaiser.com/blog
tgaiser@earthlink.net

Is not exactly about tasting …

It’s about how we think about tasting …

It’s also about how we learn …

Session Focus: My Tasting Project

Today’s Wines:
2010 Gunderloch Riesling “Rothenberg” Grosses
Gewächs, Rheinhessen
2010 John Duval “Plexus,” Shiraz-Grenache-
Mourvèdre, Barossa

Teaching tasting can be among
the most rewarding things we do

It can also be among the most
frustrating things we do …

There are major disconnects in
learning about wine

Wine is a liquid that smells and
tastes like other things
Complexity!

Wine has no inherent vocabulary

We use the language of seeing,
hearing and feeling to describe what
we smell and taste in wine

Our culture doesn’t place emphasis
or value on olfactory memory

Little, if any, awareness that
olfactory and taste memory are
also visual experiences internally

***An expectation that learning
how to taste wine is somehow
different from learning anything else
…

The Project :
Modeling Tasting
Strategies of Top
Professionals

Project
Genesis:
2009 Film
Sessions

Goals for the Project
• To deconstruct internal strategies of top
tasters
• To replicate and use the best strategies in
order to teach more effectively

Goals for the Project
• Ultimately to improve how we teach tasting:
–Students learn to taste with more ease in a
shorter period of time
–Students learn to taste using their own
memories and internal maps

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
• Sur Lucero MS
• Thomas Price MS
• Roland Micu MS
• Emily Papach MS
• Gilian Handelman
• Yosh Han
• Alyssa Harrad

Findings from Project Sessions

Eye positions and patterns are
vital to experienced tasters
The importance of a consistent
starting place and tasting sequence

Olfactory Memory—Image Connection
There is an internal visual
component to smelling and
tasting wine

Submodalities:
The structure of internal images can be
as important as the actual content

Existence of Internal Image Maps

Use of Visual Constructs as Aids for
Calibrating Structural Elements
Visual confirmation for taste

Part I: Strategies for Beginners

Strategy I:
Creating a Consistent Starting Point

Glassware Stance &
Starting Eye Position

Exercise I: Glassware Stance
• Criteria:
–Resting point
–Glass angle: finding the sweet spot
–Passive vs. active inhalation
* Inhalation patterns/angles – where are
you smelling in the glass?

Importance of Eye Positions
and Patterns
Eye Accessing Cues

Eye Accessing Cues
• 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

Importance of Starting Eye Position
• Consistent start to the sequence of smelling
and tasting wine
• Focus – shutting the world out!
• Coupled with an auditory prompt
• Literally knowing exactly HOW to start

Auditory Prompts
• “What’s there?”
• “What am I smelling?”
• “What’s in the glass?”
• “What kind of fruit (etc.) is it?”
• What is this on the end of my fork?”

Exercise II:
Finding Your Starting Eye Position

Exercise:
• Start by looking down in front and/or to
the left/right
• As you smell the wine move your eyes side
to side slowly
• Use your free hand to point EXACTLY
where your eyes are looking
• Find your zone - the place that feels the
most comfortable WHILE you talk to
yourself

Tips
• Use SOFT eyes!
• Keep smelling the wine!
• Repetition: practice going to your spot multiple
times
• Finally: play around with smelling the wine and
looking at horizon level and above— see what
happens!

Other Eye Positions and Patterns
• Other eye positions used to access:
–Internal imaging “field ” for creating or
comparing images (one’s “IMAX theater”)
–Side: auditory memories about a wine
–Up: using a tasting “grid” as a guide

Strategy II:
Olfactory Memory and Imaging

The Beginner’s Dilemma:
“But it just smells like wine …”

Awareness that there is usually an
internal image connected to smell
and/or taste memories

Challenge: how to make the
olfactory-image connection

Concept: Front Loading
Using the Basic Set to bring awareness
to the image/olfactory connection
AND improve one’s olfactory memory

What is the Basic Set?
The 25-30 most common
aromas/flavors in wine

Using the Basic Set
• Working with words and images to:
–Make the image/olfactory connection
–Improve memory of the list
components
–Use sight and auditory to prompt
personal memories*
• *Multi- memory learning vs. visual
memory

Using contrast with olfactory
memory as a tool for learning

Basic Set: Common Fruit Aromas
• Green apple
• Red and/or
Golden Delicious
apple
• Pear
• Lemon
• Lime
• Orange
• Pineapple
• Banana

Common Fruit Aromas – Cont.
• Peach
• Apricot
• Black cherry
• Blackberry
• Sour red cherry
• Red raspberry
• Cranberry
• Raisin/prune

Common Non-Fruit Aromas
• Roses
• Violets
• Mint/eucalyptus
• Pyrazines – bell
pepper
• Herbs: rosemary
• Lavender
• Pepper: white
and black

Common Non-Fruit Aromas – Cont.
• Vanilla
• Cinnamon
• Cloves
• Toast
• Coffee
• Chocolate
• Chalk
• Mushroom &
forest floor

Basic Set Modules
• Module I: words and images
• Module II: images
• Module III: words
• Module IV: contrastive analysis

I
Look at the image and say the
word internally

II
Recall a time when you
smelled and/or tasted the
given fruit, spice, etc.

III
In your mind’s “eye” reach out,
pick up a slice of the fruit (etc.)
and take a bite of it …

IV
Make your experience of the fruit,
spice or other component as
complete and intense as possible
down to the aromas, flavors and
the texture/mouthfeel

V
Intensify your experience of the memory
by doing the following:
a. Make your images (or movie) larger
b. Make your images closer
c. Make the colors brighter
d. Make any sounds louder
e. Intensify any physical/tactile sensations

Exercise IV: the Basic Set:
Experience the Following

Your memories of the following:
• Fruit:
–Lemon
–Lime
–Orange
• Non-Fruit
–Roses
–Vanilla
–Mushroom/earth
Where are the images?

Contrastive Analysis
Trying to make something into
something else …

Exercise V: Contrastive Analysis
• Use your images/memories of the
following components
• Try to make one image the other
• What happens?

Findings: Olfactory Image
Connection

All project 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

Exercise VI: Making the
Olfactory-Image Connection
“Seeing” what’s in the glass

Instructions
I. With your partner find at least 3 aromas in
the glass (or more!)
II. As you ID an aroma be aware of the image
of it in your mind’s eye
III. Show your partner precisely where they
are in your “mind’s eye”
IV. Partners: keep track!

Explorers: Show Your Partners:
- Proximity (how close or far away)
- Location
- Size
- Brightness
- Color vs. black & white
- 2D vs. 3D
- Still image vs. movie

Part II:
Strategies for
More Advanced Tasters

Tasting Maps
• All tasters in the project formed an
internal map of the images of the aromas
in a given wine
• The image maps or grids differ--
sometimes radically --from person to
person

Examples of 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

Tim Gaiser
Pattern from several wines
Start

Comment: tasting wine is a
synesthetic experience

Exercise VI: Review Your Image Map
1. Review your previous aromas/images
2. Find more if there
3. Questions:
- What happens to the images once you
create them?
- Do they move?
- Can you find them again if you need them?
4. Map image location

Strategy V: Submodalities
The Stuff of Thought and
the Fabric of Experience

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 internal modality can possess

Common Submodalities: Visual
• Black & white or color*
• Proximity: near or far*
• Location*
• Brightness*
• Location*
• 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

Exercise VII: Submodalities –
From Nose to Palate

• With your partner:
• Taste the wine
–Note how the flavors change from nose to
palate – do the images change?
–Does the image structure change too?
– Size, brightness, color, proximity,
dimensionality
–Does your map of the wine change as well?

Exercise VIII:
Changing Submodalities

• Choose one aroma/flavor
• Experiment with the following while smelling
the wine:
–Size: smaller vs. larger
–Closer vs. farther away
–Brightness
–Color vs. black and white
–2D vs. 3D
• How does each change affect the wine?
• Change one thing at a time! Then Reset It

Submodalities Check List
• Size: smaller vs. larger
• Closer vs. farther away
• Brightness
• Color vs. black and white
• 2D vs. 3D

Strategy VI: Calibrating Structure
with Visual Constructs

Tasters in the project use internal visual
constructs or cues to calibrate the
structure of wine

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
• If I’m not sure I bring the ruler in closer to me
and more increments on the ruler appear

Exercise XI: Installing Your
Calibration Scale
• With your partner:
• Create your scale: use a ruler, dial or
whatever works best, easiest – make it
BIG!
• Locate “low,” “medium” and “high” on
the scale (also med- and med+)
• Place calibration “button” or “marker”
etc. at medium

Installation Cont.
• Calibrate for acidity, alcohol, tannin
• Use EXTREMES!
• Examples:
–Acidity: lemon juice for high and water for low
–Alcohol: port for high vs. Moscato di Asti for
low
–Tannin: Barolo (Fernet Branca?) for high vs.
Nouveau Beaujolais for low

Exercise XII: calibrate the structural
elements of the Terlano Lagrein
Acidity
Alcohol
Tannin

The Future …
• Open source project
• This presentation and the Basic Set will be
available at slideshare.com; link on Facebook
and link in my blog
• Experiment! Have fun with it!
• Report in!
• Funding wanted …

Thanks
• To JamesandDrew!
• 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

T Gaiser TEXSOM Tasting Seminar Notes

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