PPT used by Tim Gaiser MS for the National Bloggers' Conference in Portland on August 18, 2012.

1. The Neuroscience of Wine Tasting
Unlocking the Tasting
Strategies of Genius
Tim Gaiser MS
Wine Bloggers’ Conference
August 18, 2012

2. Initial Thoughts

3. 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

4. The wine:
2008 John Duval Plexus, Barossa

5. 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

6. The Project

7. Teaching Tasting
Is one of the most
rewarding things we do
It can also be one of
the most frustrating …

8. 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?

9. Desired State:
More effective strategies for
teaching students tasting

10. Resources:
The strategies of top tasters

11. 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

12. 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

13. Project
Genesis:
2009 Film
Sessions

14. Session Results

15. Eye positions and patterns are
vital to experienced tasters

16. Olfactory memory—image connection

17. Submodalities:
The structure of internal images can
potentially be more important than
the actual content

18. The existence unique and very
personal internal image maps or grids

19. Internal visual constructs are
commonly used for every aspect of
experiencing wine

20. Why hasn’t someone
figured this out before?

21. How Can You Be In Two Places
At Once When You're Not
Anywhere At All?*
*Firesign Theater

22. Mastery of any skill:
unconscious competence
at a very high level

23. Needed:
the “meta” position -
An observer or guide to help slow
down one’s internal thinking
processes to elicit strategies

24. The Ongoing Project:
Modeling top tasters

25. Goal:
To see if the findings from the 2009
film sessions were consistent
in other tasters

26. Goal:
To attempt to find commonality of
strategies among other
experienced tasters

27. Goal:
To create sequences using these
strategies in order to be able to
teach them to students

28. Final goal:
To improve
how we teach tasting

29. What is modeling?
Eliciting internal patterns of
excellence in behavior and
communication

30. 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

31. 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

32. Project Findings

33. 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

34. Evidence: Needs for Tasting
• Adequate light
• Quiet environment
• Odor free
• Tasting wine in batches
• Wines at proper temperatures
• Good glassware

35. I. Sight

36. 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

37. Finding:
Use of Visual Constructs for
Determining Color and Age

38. 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?”

39. 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

40. II. Smell:
the Main Event

41. Findings: Eye Positions
All tasters used a consistent starting
eye position or pattern
when smelling wine

42. Eye Positions:
Background

43. 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

44. 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

45. 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

46. Eye Patterns and Eye Accessing Cues

47. 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

48. 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

49. Eye Accessing Cues

50. 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

51. Eye Position Exercise

52. Finding:
The Olfactory Image Connection

53. Remember a time when wine
just smelled like … wine

54. 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?”

55. 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

56. Image Maps

57. 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

58. Project Taster Image Maps

59. Karen MacNeil
No Consistent Auditory Prompt
2009 Yalumba Shiraz, South Australia

60. Evan Goldstein
Auditory Prompt: “What kind of fruit is it?”
2009 Yalumba Shiraz, South Australia

61. Tracy Kamens
Auditory Prompt: “What’s there?”
Start
2009 Joseph Leitz Riesling Erstes Gewächs

62. Emily Wines
Auditory prompt: “What’s there?”
2008 Double Bond Pinot Noir, Wolff Vineyard, Edna Valley

63. Peter Marks
Auditory Prompt: “What’s there?”
2009 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

64. Tim Gaiser
Auditory Prompt: “What’s there?”
Start
Pattern from several wines

65. Conclusion:
Image Maps are Unique and Vary
Dramatically from Person to Person

66. Olfactory Image Exercise

67. Partner Up

68. 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

69. Exercise

70. Submodalities
The Structure of Thought and
Experience

71. Findings:
Submodalities are vitally important
to the internal imaging process and
tasters’ experience of wine

72. 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

73. Common Submodalities: Visual
• Black & white or color* • Associated / Dissociated
• Proximity: near or far* • Focused or Defocused
• Location* • Framed or Unframed
• Brightness* • Movie or still image
• Size of image* • If a Movie-
• Three dimensional or flat Fast/Normal/Slow
image*
*Driver Submodality

74. Auditory
• Volume: loud or soft • Fast or slow
• Distance: near or far • Pitch: high or low
• Internal or external • Verbal or tonal
• Location • Rhythm
• Stereo or mono • Clarity
• Pauses

75. Kinesthetic
• Intensity: strong or • Constant or
weak intermittent
• Area: large vs. small • Temperature: hot or
• Weight: heavy or light cold
• Location • Size
• Texture: smooth, rough • Shape
or other • Pressure
• Vibration

76. Findings:
Altering driver submodalities in all
tasters changed their experience of
a wine—sometimes dramatically

77. 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

78. Submodality Exercise

79. IV. Palate
Olfactory Confirmation and
Structural Calibration

80. Palate:
Confirmation of aromatics
Do images and image maps change
from nose to palate?

81. 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.

82. 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.

83. Palate:
Structural Calibration

84. Finding:
Tasters commonly used internal
visual constructs or scales to
calibrate the structure of wine

85. 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.

86. 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

87. 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

88. 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

89. Utilization:
How can the findings be used
to help students learn?

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

91. Help students to become aware of
the aroma-image connection that
they already possess and use
Using imaging to install new
memories

92. Practicing Tasting Without Wines –
Disassociated and Associated
Rehearsal as a Learning Tool

93. Teaching students to calibrate
structural elements using internal
visual scales/constructs

94. Final thoughts

95. Q&A

96. 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

97. 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

98. Tim Gaiser, MS
tgaiser@earthlink.net
www.timgaiser.com
Blog: www.timgaiser.com/blog.html