• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • How to Taste Wine
  • Tasting & Submodalities
  • Work With Tim
  • Contact
Tim Gaiser, Master Sommelier

Van Gogh’s Glass

8/30/2016

3 Comments

 
Picture
The Red Vineyard by Van Gogh
Two things I shared with my Dad were classical music and a love of great art. The first was a vital part of my life from fourth grade when I started playing the trumpet all the way into my mid-30’s. During that time there were two music degrees as well as a short career playing freelance classical trumpet in San Francisco. The second, my love of painting, goes all the way back to around 1960 when my Dad ordered a series of books called “Metropolitan Seminars in Art,” written by Robert Canaday and published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The set was comprised of 12 volumes each focused on a specific era or style of art. With the arrival of a new volume—each costing a whopping $4.09--my Dad and I would sit down together before bedtime to go through the book.

I have many memories of sitting with him looking at the reproductions of great paintings printed on thick glossy stock that accompanied each volume. I recall him saying dozens of times that this or that painting was “beautiful” or “gorgeous” or “amazing.” I also clearly remember him tell me emphatically, “this is important. Art is important. It’s one of the greatest things man has ever done.” Mind you, I didn’t connect with him on many levels so these two exceptions—music and art—quickly became near and dear. 
Picture
Picture
To this day ​I’m a huge fan of painting of any era from the 12th century on. Two favorites are Renaissance Italy and Impressionism. For Italy and the Renaissance the room at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence housing the Botticelli works is it. I’ve been there twice and it changed my life both times. But l’m also a huge fan of Impressionist painting. Last spring I was in Chicago for an event and spent a few hours at the Art Institute, one of the country’s great museums. It also houses one of the finest Impressionist collections outside of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
 
I love Impressionist art for how it represents nature and people in nature so subjectively, an enormous departure for painting at the time. With the use of remarkably beautiful colors and nuances of light and shadow, much of what is conveyed on the canvas is implied but not precisely depicted. The artist has left it up to the viewer to fill in the spaces internally and each of us does so uniquely and very subjectively. It’s as if Impressionism is the indirect communication of the art world.
 
Van Gogh’s work, “Starry Night,” completed in 1889, is the one painting that immediately comes to mind. Though technically Post-Impressionist, Starry Night continues to astound with its dramatic use of color, intensity of emotion, and almost shocking application of paint on the canvas. The creative energy that became Starry Night can only be described as electric. ​Looking at the work today we get the slightest glimpse into what was the tumult of Van Gogh’s inner world.
Picture
Starry Night
Picture
MOMA - May 2017
Your Brain on Music

Daniel Levitan is a Stanford-trained psychologist who also has a successful career as a recording engineer and producer. In his book, “This is Your Brain on Music,” he combines both disciplines to explore how the brain and our thought processes can be profoundly influenced by listening to music. He writes: 
​
“Much of what we see and hear contains missing information. Our hunter gatherer ancestors might have seen a tiger partially hidden by trees, or heard a lion’s roar partly obscured by the sound of leaves rustling much closer to us. Sounds and sights often come to us as partial information that has been obscured by other things in the environment. A perceptual system that can restore missing information would help us to make quick decisions in threatening situations. Better to run now than sit and try to figure out if those two separate, broken pieces of sound were part of a lion’s roar.”
 

Levitan writes further that the great perceptual psychologist Hermann von Helmholz calls this process, “unconscious inference,” a way of saying that “what we hear and see is the end of a long chain of mental events that give rise to an impression, a mental image, of the physical world. Many of the ways in which our brains function—including our senses of color, taste, smell, and hearing—arose due to evolutionary pressures, some of which no longer exist.” 
Picture
Unconscious Inference and Tasting
 
What does Impressionism in art and unconscious inference in music have to do with wine? Good question. I’ve often thought about the role that expectation plays when looking at a glass of wine. How our memory of previous wines in terms of color, texture, and other aspects creates expectations when looking at a “new” glass of wine; literally how we fill in the blanks with a new glass of wine using previous information. I’ve also questioned the value of previous experience when looking at a new glass of wine. Should we allow previous memories to influence expectations? Or should we attempt to view each new glass of wine as a separate and unique experience without drawing on previous memories as a more accurate way to experience, much less assess?
 
Several years ago I had a long conversation with a good friend and industry colleague who said that she always tried to approach each wine as a totally new and unique experience; that she wanted at all costs to avoid judging a new wine based on previous experience. I respected her viewpoint but also immediately wondered if it was actually possible given the concept of unconscious inference mentioned above.
 
Personally I’m a firm believer in the value of previous experience when it comes to looking at a glass of wine. To a seasoned taster the simple act of tilting the glass forward to have a close look at a wine can—and should—build instant expectations with regards to a wide range of criteria; from possible grape variety to climate of origin to fruit character (fresh, dried, tart, etc.) and most importantly the structural elements including potential levels of acidity, alcohol, and tannin. For example, looking at a glass of red wine that’s lighter in color can build instant expectations in terms of a thinner-skinned grape variety grown in a cooler climate with red fruit dominating the palate and the structure of the wine offering less alcohol, higher natural acidity, and moderate tannins. 
 
No doubt that this is all far from hard science. One can always be surprised when actually smelling and tasting a wine when initial expectations aren’t met. But drawing from one’s previous experiences can be considerably useful in blind tasting practice and exams, not to mention mental/associative rehearsal of classic grapes and wines. Given that, here are four scenarios with possible expectations as well as thoughts on secondary colors in red wine and the potential information derived from the legs-tears.  
Picture
White wine scenario I

Light/pale color =
  • Youth
  • Possible cooler climate/vintage
  • Possible anaerobic fermentation
  • Lack of new oak aging
  • Possible lighter body
  • Possible less alcohol
  • Possible ​higher natural acidity
  • Tarter—less ripe—fruit quality
Picture
White wine scenario II 

Deep yellow or gold color =
  • Warmer climate/riper vintage
  • Oxidative winemaking/overall age
  • Possible extended aging in new oak
  • Possible botrytis
  • Possible phenolic bitterness
  • ​Possible higher alcohol
  • Possible lower natural acidity with potential for acidulation
  • Riper fruit quality
Picture
Red Wine Scenario I

Lighter Color =
  • Thin skinned grape
  • Cooler climate/vintage
  • Less overall ripeness
  • Red fruit dominant
  • Possible higher natural acidity
  • Possible lower alcohol
  • Possible less overall tannin
  • Possible more non-fruit elements
Picture
Red Wine Scenario II

Deeper color =
  • Thicker skinned grape
  • Warmer climate / vintage
  • Dark fruit dominant
  • More overall ripeness of fruit
  • Possible less non-fruit elements (fruit-dominant wine)
  • Possible higher alcohol
  • Possible lower natural acidity with potential for acidulation
  • Possible higher tannin
  • Possible residual sugar
  • Extreme cases: less varietal definition
Picture
Color of edge/rim in red wines:

Pink or purple color =
  • Youth
  • Lack of extending oak aging

Salmon/orange/yellow/brown =
  • Age in barrel or bottle and/or oxidative winemaking
  • Possible thin skinned varieties (i.e., Sangiovese, Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo, Grenache)
Picture
Legs/tears:
 
Quickly forming, thinner and quickly moving tears/legs =
  • Lower alcohol
  • Possible cooler climate
  • Lack of residual sugar

Slower forming, thicker and slower moving tears/legs =
  • Higher alcohol
  • Warmer climate growing region
  • Possible presence of residual sugar
  • Higher dry extract

Staining of the tears in red wines =
  • Thicker skinned grape
  • Concentrated wine
  • Possible warmer climate
  • Higher dry extract
3 Comments
Steve Armes link
9/5/2016 01:58:21 am

Tim--
Great post, as always. I will be studying it, as I usually do with your posts and I want to thank you for your continued and generous contributions!



Reply
Tim Gaiser
9/5/2016 07:50:08 am

Steve, thanks for your kind comments--much appreciated!

Reply
Zhili
9/6/2016 08:00:46 pm

Hello Tim,

I have followed your blog for some time now and it hasn't failed to provoke intriguing thoughts.

I recently had the same epiphany while thinking about how I assess wines.
I would like to call it 'A Posteriori' and 'A Priori', which as the names suggest, whether it is Deductive or Inductive respectively.

I have always based my assessment of wines using the grid/associative imaging that you have recommended and it has worked very well. I think these two work hand in hand, so no reason to call for one or the other.. but here comes the caveat..

For the sake of argument, let's discuss the merits of each on its own.
Deduction using the grid is like how your friend/colleague suggests:
assessing each wine on its own; what you see or taste is what you get.

Using prior knowledge to frame the wine via general observations that we have gathered from before can give us a glint about the identity of the wine in hand. But this has proven to be variable in successfully guessing the wine.

Though that is not to say that I am discounting the latter, I do believe that subjective and objective assessments of the wine are equally relevant.

Cheers
Z

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Tim Gaiser

    My thoughts on wine and more. I hope you enjoy.


    Get blog posts delivered by email. Enter your address:

     Subscribe in a reader

    Check out my book and DVD on wine tasting.

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    All
    Books
    Dining
    Exam Preparation
    Food
    Food And Wine
    Other
    Recently Tasted
    Recently Tasting
    Recordings
    Restaurants
    Spirits
    Studies
    Tasting
    Tastings
    The Rest
    Wine
    Wine Events
    Wineries
    Wine Service
    Winesoftheworld
    Wines Of The World

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.