I attended Tim Gaiser’s presentation on the Neuroscience of Wine Tasting. It was certainly interesting and an area that begs for further research. As an MS, Tim has helped students pass their MS test. He noticed that teaching people how to taste has its challenges often related to their own neurologies, memories and life experiences. Tim participated in Project Genesis, a study that hoped to learn how to better teach people to taste wines. Top tasters were video taped and the tapes were studied.

Results seem to indicate that eye positions and patterns are important variables for expert tasters. These tasters can see color images in their mind that match a wine’s color, aroma and tastes. Many tasters can see color swatches in their mind that helps identify a wine’s color. When smelling a wine, all tasters in the study had a constant starting eye position. Tim had the attendees discover their starting eye position by smelling a 2008 John Duval Plexus, Barossa. I discovered that my starting eye position was down and slightly left.

Another result of the study is that the tasters developed internal image maps or pictures of the aromas they smelled in a wine. The attendees partnered up and described what image they saw in their mind. I never thought about this in the past. My images were in color and were located above center. Aromas of the oak were smaller and located up and to the right. I’m not certain if the images were the result of Portland’s Voodoo Doughnuts that I had before the session or if there is something to this wine tasting neurology.

Tim asked us to concentrate on the predominant aroma. He then asked us to make the image in our heads black and white and smell the wine. I could have sworn that the aroma decreased. Most attendees had similar results. When asked to make the image smaller and push it away, I thought the wine’s aroma also decreased. When asked to make the image bigger, I didn’t notice any difference in aroma, though others did.

The exercises were thought provoking and may be interesting to try at a wine tasting for a few friends. More research needs to be done with people who easily can smell and taste a wine and describe it. If these people really form images, then how can we help people to see the images? Tim suggested that we begin to concentrate on images from all foods and drinks, not just wines. Is there something to this or was it just fun?

Cheers,
Terry