tg tasting strategies of genius ppt swe pdf

Tasting Strategies of Genius

Tim Gaiser, MS

Society of Wine Educator’s Conference

Orlando – August 2nd, 2013

Today’s Session

Review and Update of the Tasting Project

Strategies from Project

Part I: Strategies For Beginners

Part II: Strategies For More

Experienced Students

Exercises

Pair Up!

A Request …

Today’s Wine:

2010 Cantina Terlano Lagrein Riserva “Poryphery,”

Alto Adige

Teaching tasting is the most rewarding thing we do

It can also be the most frustrating thing we do …

The Major Disconnects of 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

The Project :

Modeling the 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

• Ultimately to improve how we teach tasting:

– Students learn to taste with more ease in a shorter period of time

– Students learn 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

Eye positions and patterns are vital to experienced tasters

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

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?

Starting Eye Position

Importance of Eye Positions and Patterns

Eye Accessing Cues

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!

• 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!

• Keep smelling the wine!

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 …”

Needed: Awareness!

Awareness that there is usually an internal image connected to smell

and/or taste memories

Challenge: how to help the beginner or novice taster to make that 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 memories*

• *Multi- memory learning vs. visual memory

Using contrast with olfactory memory as a tool for learning and

improving tasting

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

Exercise III: the Basic Set

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 sound louder e. Intensify any physical/tactile sensations

Exercise IV: Experience the Following

Rewind! Use Your Own Memories

• Fruit: –Lemon

–Lime

–Orange

*Where are the images?

• Non-Fruit –Roses

–Vanilla

–Mushroom/earth

Contrastive Analysis

And trying to make something into something else …

Exercise V: Contrastive Analysis

• Use your images/memories of the components listed below

• Try to make one image the other

• What happens?

–Lemon into mushroom

–Lime into vanilla

–Orange into rose

Now we can begin …

Exercise VI: Making the Olfactory-Image Connection

• “Seeing” what’s in the glass

• With your partner

I. Find at least 3 aromas in the glass (or more!) II. Show your partner precisely where they are in your “mind’s eye” III. Partners: keep track!

Keep track of the following:

- Proximity (how close or far away) - Location

- Size - Brightness

- Color vs. black & white - 2D vs. 3D

- Still image vs. movie

Report!

Part II: Strategies for

More Advanced Tasters

Strategy IV: The Image Map

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

Auditory Prompt: “What’s there?”

Tim Gaiser

Pattern from several wines

Auditory Prompt: “What’s there?”

Start

Comment: tasting 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

• 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

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

©2013 Tim Gaiser MS

www.timgaiser.com/blog

tgaiser@earthlink.net