Full Episode HERE.

What happens when a Master Sommelier rewires how he sees, smells, and thinks just to pass one of the hardest exams in the world? In this episode, I sit down with Tim Gaiser, Master Sommelier, author, educator, and possibly the only human who tastes Zinfandel and visualizes cafeteria trays of fruit.

We dive deep into Tim’s decades-long obsession with wine, his uncanny tasting method (involving internal IMAX theaters and invisible buttons), and why tasting exams are NOT creative. He also opens up about the “evil dwarves” of wine confusion, the service skills that separate the good from the great, and how to bring hospitality back into focus after the pandemic.

From jellyfish and pig’s blood in China to white Russians paired with soup in dreamland, this episode covers wine, culture, memory, service…and rats. Yes, rats.

Whether you’re a seasoned sommelier, a server with wine anxiety, or just a curious wine drinker who likes good stories and better pizza, this one’s for you.

Expect to Learn:

• How to beat test anxiety with a technique called “clearing the mechanism”
• The #1 trait that separates great servers from forgettable ones
• What’s wrong (and what’s right) with natural wine
• How Tim Gaiser built his tasting method by hacking his own brain
• The role of visual memory, structure scales, and internal cafeteria trays in blind tasting
• Why wine education could be more available and how the Court of Master Sommeliers could evolve
• The moment Tim knew he had “restaurant eyes” (and why that might be a curse)
• What “evil dwarves” are and how they ruin your deductive tasting exam

Links:

• Tim’s Tasting Book: ⁠Message in the Bottle⁠
• Tim’s Essay Collection: ⁠Strong Water⁠  
• ⁠Tim’s Blog⁠
• ⁠Substack – Hits and Missives⁠
• ⁠GUILD SOMM⁠

Service starts now.

Follow the show:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠ ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠

I talk mostly to people in and around the service industry space. I’m looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in restaurants. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess of a life, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. You can find more of my work at⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠my blog⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and all my social links are at the bottom of that page.

Classic Episodes You May Like:

-#10:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nat Harry, cocktail expert!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-#14:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Dr. Shalini Bahl, mindful marketing⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-#22:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Doug Frost MW MS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-#23:⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeffrey Morgenthaler⁠⁠⁠⁠

As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.

Cheers

Tim Gaiser (00:03.073)

Hey there.

Andrew Roy (00:04.344)

How’s it going?

Tim Gaiser (00:06.326)

Hey Andrew, how are you?

Andrew Roy (00:08.033)

I’m good, good. Are you still in Phoenix or have made it home?

Tim Gaiser (00:12.834)

No, I got home yesterday late afternoon. Yeah. So I’m sure you saw a big result,

Andrew Roy (00:17.368)

Awesome. Awesome.

I haven’t seen how many people made it through.

Tim Gaiser (00:22.688)

No. Well, there were 87 total students taking it, which is the biggest exam ever, and 55 people passed.

Andrew Roy (00:32.238)

Alright, that’s pretty good, honestly. Yeah, I think the one time I got through theory, gosh, 2022 or 23, I’d have to look back at my notes. I think only about 50 % passed that year, so.

Tim Gaiser (00:34.336)

Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is pretty good. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (00:51.362)

Yep. Well, it’s, you know, historically, the pass rate is about 30%. You know, and then

Andrew Roy (00:58.102)

Yeah, I was thinking 50 even sounded high.

Tim Gaiser (01:02.166)

Yeah, but again, that was, you know, that was before when people would take all three parts of the exam, right? So now that people have to pass the theory first and they show up, I think maybe they’re better prepared. I don’t know. But this was also a perfect storm. A lot of repeat offenders taking the exam again. lot of first time people well prepared, especially on service. We saw some really good service, you know, on Monday and then same thing on Tuesday with tasting, you know, my panel we saw.

Andrew Roy (01:08.302)

Hmm.

Tim Gaiser (01:32.47)

you know, some really good tasting. So, you know, it always goes in cycles and, yep, so people were prepared.

Andrew Roy (01:41.838)

I, you know, I was almost one of those. You almost had one more there, but…

Tim Gaiser (01:46.594)

Now, I can’t believe 59 % of 30, that’s tough. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (01:50.862)

No, it’s fine. Even when I got through theory last year, think I had, I think it was a 65%, which, I mean it is a hard test, so I tell even my colleagues, I say, this isn’t a test you get 100 % on. It’s not gonna happen.

Tim Gaiser (02:00.726)

Yeah, it is. is. Yeah. You know, it’s…

No, no, no, but at the same time, know, it’s, you know, people’s backgrounds really comes into play with these exams, you know. So if you’ve spent time in college and you’re used to studying for exams and writing papers and taking tests, that’s really one thing. And, and so that, that’s a huge help because then you study habits are kind of there. And, but if you don’t have that, you know, the theory part is really hard for people. Right. So, and then, you know,

Andrew Roy (02:10.766)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Roy (02:21.326)

Woof woof woof woof.

Andrew Roy (02:30.294)

Alright.

Andrew Roy (02:35.682)

Well I’ve… That was it.

Tim Gaiser (02:36.524)

You have to work in a really good restaurant for the service, you know? Yeah. Who’s your friend in the background? Who’s your friend in the background?

Andrew Roy (02:39.522)

Yeah. If you don’t have those mechanics down every day, it’s hard to do it.

Zeus Zeus, yeah, I apologize. I’m guessing that we’re probably getting a package at the moment He’s great Dane he’s he’s a good defender. Yeah, so Well, sure I do you want to get into it and have a conversation yeah might as well right Before I forget is it geezer geyser? I’ve heard it said both ways

Tim Gaiser (02:55.488)

No. He’s a greeter. goodness. goodness. Okay. Okay.

Tim Gaiser (03:09.538)

Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (03:14.818)

Gaser. Yeah. Gaser. Yeah. you know, whenever I go to Europe and if it’s in Germany or Austria, I just go with Geiser, you know. yeah. Roll. Yeah. Yeah, and I’m actually, I was in Germany and Austria both this spring. So, very cool.

Andrew Roy (03:17.56)

Gaser.

Andrew Roy (03:25.534)

okay. Yes. What in Rome? as the Romans do.

Andrew Roy (03:37.528)

Yeah, no, I saw some pictures on your Instagram. Austria, think it was the one I saw recently. You know, I say when in Rome, the first thing I thought of is strong water. Your tale in China, believe, eating jellyfish, if I remember correctly, and boiled pig blood.

Tim Gaiser (03:40.322)

Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (03:59.85)

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s just like a big bowl full of like snot. It’s just so slimy and then it’s, you know, it’s like like low tide, you know? And, you know, that texture, mean, slimy, I think is a favorite texture of the Chinese. so they really like it. They like strong things, strong fishy, bitter things. And it’s curious because the first time I went over there and taught

Andrew Roy (04:05.612)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (04:12.044)

Yes.

Andrew Roy (04:24.142)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Gaiser (04:27.222)

you know, did an intro course and is certified in Hong Kong, which was, think, 2008. Especially in Hong Kong, you know, what became apparent to us is that, you know, the way the students were calibrating tannin was off. It’s just like for them, there was no such thing as too much tannin. And so they didn’t understand why you couldn’t drink Cabernet with oysters in a half shell, things like that. And then it occurred to me that, you know, from the time they’re babies, they have, they’re drinking tea, right?

They’re getting tea. They tannin. So they grow up with tannin and at some point they must become immune to it. And so there is no such thing as too much tannin for them. So that’s very curious thing if you think about for Chinese omeliers and how they’re pairing wine, in that they can probably use practically any red wine with practically any dish, you know, and it’s fine. Whereas, you know, in other cultures, you know, that would be a problem. So, yeah.

Andrew Roy (04:57.88)

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Roy (05:26.046)

interesting. I love those weird intersections of cultures that you just don’t expect. One of our waiters at the restaurant is Mormon and I’m so used to describing to beginning waiters tannin in terms of you know it’s that mouth fill you get a wine you can’t drink well it’s tea and she said you know I we don’t drink tea and so I had to just go to eating grapes. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (05:35.81)

Mmm.

Tim Gaiser (05:49.174)

Yeah, yeah, we’re talking. Wow, that’s a good one. So maybe I’m Deve or Radicchio, you know? Who knows? I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (05:58.562)

Yeah, you could go those natural plantain and like, materials too, Well, one of the things I was hoping to start off and ask you, and I thought it’d be fresh in your mind since you just got done with the course, if you could remake the course, if you were all of sudden king of the quartermaster Psalms, what would you do differently? Or is there anything major or systemic you’d change?

Tim Gaiser (06:24.18)

No, I’m not a person who tweaks existing systems. And so I think the pillars of what the MS program is in terms of service, because it’s a solely organization that separates us from all the wine certification organizations. And then the tasting is certainly part of

Andrew Roy (06:46.542)

I’m sorry, you are cutting out just a little bit there. thank you.

Tim Gaiser (06:50.474)

Okay. Is that better? Okay.

Andrew Roy (06:53.803)

you’re back now, you’re back now. Sorry.

Tim Gaiser (06:55.906)

Okay, so I would say, know, the pillars of the program, the tasting theory and service, especially the emphasis has to be on service because we’re a sommelier organization and, you know, that’s what we do. And that separates us from all the other wine certification organizations. And then, you know, the tasting.

you know, is certainly a sommelier table side describing a wine to a guest. And that’s where it originated from. And it certainly has morphed over the years into something, a certain form and protocol. And then the theory, of course, underpins everything, even tasting. So anyway, would I change anything? No. The only thing I would do is reintroduce a service component at the intro course. Because originally,

Andrew Roy (07:42.953)

yeah.

Tim Gaiser (07:43.892)

Yeah, originally there was and still is a service component. you know, our counterparts in the UK, in the EU, they still do service component opening bottles, still wine and some tray service with their intro course. And when the enter course came here, which I think was 1989 or 1990, the powers that be decided that the numbers would really quickly become so big that we wouldn’t be able to do it.

And sure enough, know, within five, six years after the fact, know, intro courses were like 70, 80 people and it would require a third day, right? And so it just, you know, it was decided it’s just impractical, which is too bad because I think even at the intro course, you know, it’s one thing to see a service demonstration or watch a video. It’s another thing to get up there and show you can open a bottle of still wine and at least service. And you know how to, you know, place and remove glassware and answer real simple questions.

Andrew Roy (08:37.967)

yeah.

Tim Gaiser (08:43.746)

So that’s the only thing I think we could do. And I don’t know how we would do it. It would take literally a third day. Otherwise than that, you know, I wish there was a way. Go ahead. Do you have a question? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing is, that, you know, I’m sure you figured this out. And if you get to know any number of MSs, they all, we all have specialties. You know, you certainly you pass the set of exams and you have a really in-depth general knowledge about wine and spirits.

Andrew Roy (08:51.598)

Yeah.

no, I was just agreeing. I was just agreeing. I’m remembering my intro.

Tim Gaiser (09:14.05)

But you end up doing, you know, specializing. Like for me, it’s tasting. And for a long time, it was spirits and it was German wine. And now it’s pretty much tasting. So, but you know, at our advanced course, I believe you’ve taken it, right? You know, yeah, the people who teach those lectures, those are experts. I mean, they’re world-class experts in whatever the subject is, be it sherry or be it Italian wine, be it mascal or whatever. I mean, they know it as well as anyone. So I just wish we…

Andrew Roy (09:30.179)

yeah, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (09:43.49)

could record those and those would be available for people in the industry or at least our students. Because I think we’re talking about a vast data bank of really brilliant people who know this stuff. So that’s the only thing and I push for that and hopefully near term we’re going to get the funding and we’ll figure that out and do it. Because I think that should be available. It should be even for people who are going to take the entry course if they’re interested in learning about the Mosul or they want to know about Sherry.

Andrew Roy (09:50.294)

yeah.

Tim Gaiser (10:11.648)

They can go to our YouTube channel and they can watch Chris Bates talk about Sherry. Or they can watch Jesse Becker talk about Austria and the Mosul, you know. So that kind of thing. But I think it’s more education now that we have more ways to do it. Because even though we now have 200 students taking the advanced course every year, we’re not reaching enough people, you know. And who’s to say, even people, if they’re not in our program, they should still benefit by it, you know. That’s what I think.

Andrew Roy (10:35.278)

Hmm.

Andrew Roy (10:40.556)

Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the, I know it’s guilt Psalm is not the court, but a lot of, I think he, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (10:46.858)

Right, sure. Yeah, the Gales Farm is brilliant. Yeah, they do a lot of brilliant work. Absolutely. Yeah. And to me, that’s still the best online resource for wine education there is. Those guys, Steve, who Chris Tangi and Jonathan Eichholz, those guys are brilliant. Yeah.

So.

Andrew Roy (11:06.246)

no, sorry, I kind of lost my thought there. I was going to, you know, that’s what I was going to say. funny enough, I think we talked about this briefly on the phone. You, you asked if I’ve been at the advanced course, but you know, I was actually at your table when I was at the advanced, but, yeah, we, well, I, I, on the phone, I said, you know, I’m sure you’ve taught thousands and thousands of people.

Tim Gaiser (11:24.695)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Gaiser (11:28.099)

my goodness, shows you how good my memory is.

Andrew Roy (11:35.906)

how to taste at this point. So yeah, so I was gonna ask, know, for the listener out there who, you know, I think the average Joe in a restaurant who has to taste wine and describe it table side, maybe they don’t have a qualified somerang, are there any tips or tricks that you could tell someone like, you know, how to even just begin to approach wine? You know, I know that’s like the broadest question in the world. Yeah, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (11:35.916)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (12:00.978)

Yeah, yeah, short question, long answer. You know, but there are ways, you know, and they’ve even written something about it somewhere. But, you know, I think, you know, even people who drink wine once in a while, they have favorites that they can remember, right? And so I think just you’re going to go into a restaurant and you may be even handed the wine list in front of your friends or peers or whatever. And just going in and knowing what you like.

Andrew Roy (12:10.872)

Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (12:30.562)

Right? So I had, you know, ex Pinot Grigio, or I had this Chardonnay that I really liked. And if you go in and equip with that and you can tell the service, you know, I had this wine one time and I really liked it. What do you have that’s similar? Right? And if you get beyond that and you can’t get anywhere, take a look at the wine by the glass list and pick one thing or two things and ask to taste them, you know? And say, hey, you know, I’m looking for, this is the, like Chardonnay or I don’t like Chardonnay or whatever.

Andrew Roy (12:54.082)

Mm.

Tim Gaiser (12:59.998)

and I’m looking at your wine by the glass list and what do think I’d like? Because here’s what I tend to like when I drink at home. What do you think would work? And the server at least should be able to handle that. Or somebody who’s working the shift should be able to handle that, you know? And then of course, you know, if you have more knowledge than that, you probably know what you like and you have a price point. So you should be shameless about telling them that too. Say, hey, you know what?

You know, we hear it for a nice dinner, we’re looking at your list, this is great, you got a lot of wines. I’m looking for white wine, I don’t like white wine with oak, but you know, here’s my price range and what do you think would work? What’s good, you know? And or the magic question is always to ask, especially if you’re talking to somebody, what have you got in the end that you really like? You know, what do you think is a great value and you really think people should try? And odds are they’re gonna get dangerously excited really fast. Because they’re go, oh, I care, or.

Andrew Roy (13:52.91)

Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (13:54.432)

He or she cares about my list and they recognize I put work into it. And so yeah, you got to try these things. Because that’s the moment sommeliers live for. When somebody says, what do you think? And what do think I ought to try? You know? And that’s all right, it’s going to be good. You know? Now, it could be strange, you know? But, you know, that’s all right, won’t be. That’s all right, it’ll be good. So.

Andrew Roy (14:06.446)

Hmm.

Andrew Roy (14:15.576)

Yeah.

Well, I did just read your section in Strongwater about natural wine. That brought us some good points. That’s a haul.

Tim Gaiser (14:23.894)

Yeah. Well, yeah, it’s funny because, you know, Tuesday night, we were on our own for dinner. Usually at these exams, all the examiners, you know, the powers that be have arranged dinner for us. And with that many of us, you know, we had, you know, we had some nice meals Sunday, Monday night. And then Tuesday, they just said, you’re on your own. A lot of us going to be working late trying to, you know, crunch all the data. And so a group of nine and nine of us went to Pizzeria Bianco.

And if you’re in Phoenix and you like pizza, you gotta go there. Pizzeria Bianco. Doesn’t see many people. They don’t take reservations, but it’s one of those certified Neapolitan pizza places and it is amazing pizza, right? So at the same time, you know, there’s the group of us, nine of us, and there’s like three winemakers sitting and somehow natural wine came up and it really wasn’t a positive discussion.

Let me just say that, and we’re all listening to the guys who are winemakers. And they just said, yeah, you can pull it off. You can pull it off, but you gotta have serious skills and you have to have a perfect, pristine seller. And the wines have to be microbiologically stable. If not, then all sorts of things go wrong and you end up with wine that tastes like kombucha, right? And so, but they said it can be done, but not many people pull it off.

Andrew Roy (15:24.418)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (15:49.014)

Mmm.

Tim Gaiser (15:53.866)

And so that was the general gist of the conversation.

Andrew Roy (15:59.02)

Like, kind of think of it like, you can survive a broken bone without going to the doctor. You can! Just, you don’t have to anymore, you know? Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (16:06.378)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s a whole, mean, yeah, see, it’s a very open-ended discussion because there are people all over the planet who are brilliant winemakers who frankly don’t do a lot to their wines and they don’t add a lot of sulfur. Sometimes they don’t add sulfur at all, but those people know exactly what they’re doing and they have, who knows how many years of experience and they just know, you know, they know their vineyards, they know…

have a good idea what’s going to happen even with vintage variation. They just know what to do. I mean, I think of, you know, even some of the most expensive burgundy like Loire, there’s very little sulfur added to that wine or those wines. They’re brilliant, you know. So again, it’s, you know, there’s no easy answer to it. I think it can be a really interesting category, but it’s also a category that is just, you know, sometimes you run in, you open a bottle and it’s a chemistry project.

You know, so, yeah.

Andrew Roy (17:04.589)

see what happens. Yeah. Yeah, so I kind of derailed us with natural wine, but you were kind of guiding us through the server becoming the song to be. And so the big thing that I take from what you said is honestly openness, I think, just trying a lot of things and being open.

Tim Gaiser (17:17.335)

Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (17:23.01)

Yeah, that’s one thing, but there’s one thing that’s like the ring of power that rules them all and brings them in and then darkness blinds them. And that’s really the feeling of taking care, of caring for people. That’s hospitality. If you have that as a server, you will do little wrong. And not only that, if something goes wrong, you can fix it because all you care about is taking care of the table. I mean, that’s the essence of hospitality.

Andrew Roy (17:38.168)

Mmm.

Tim Gaiser (17:51.84)

And you know, that’s really difficult to teach. Some people just have it inherently. And then, you know, in a restaurant, it has to come from the top down. mean, Bobby stuck, Bobby at Fruska is a perfect example. I mean, service at his restaurant is like a cult. You walk in there and you can tell the place is different. Shelley Lindgren at A16 San Francisco, same thing. You walk in there and there’s multiple people at your table throughout a meal, but they are so attentive.

But they’re like, they’re not like right in your face, but they are constantly, everybody that goes past your table is looking at it every time. And it’s just, and that kind of thing, it just creates an amazing dining experience. and the question then is how do you hire for that? I mean, how do you hire people who care and find out if they care, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it is. And you know what? It’s harder than ever after the pandemic because

Andrew Roy (18:39.923)

Yeah, I mean that’s the million dollar question in the restaurant industry.

Tim Gaiser (18:50.006)

You know, that’s one of the tragedies in our industry, the restaurant industry, is that, you know, during the pandemic, we had all these really seasoned, absolute pro service people, and they had to pivot and go away. They couldn’t wait for the restaurants to open. They had to go do something else. And we lost that collective traditional wisdom, a whole demographic of it. And we’ve been trying to replace it ever since. And we’re going to be trying for who knows how long. So, but, you know, again,

training people to care and to take care of the table. And for them, you know, then you can train them to do anything, right, if they care.

Andrew Roy (19:24.558)

Yeah, I like that. And you know, on that note, the pandemic wasn’t all a loss. I think, you know, one really good thing that came out of that was your first book. Honestly. Yeah. If you can’t leave the house. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (19:31.734)

Mmm.

Tim Gaiser (19:37.186)

Yeah, well, that’s a tiny thing. Yeah, so I worked on the Tasting Book for 10 years, right? In some of the chapters, I wrote the first versions in 2005, 20 years ago. And I was education chair and then director from 2003 to 2011 and Shane Bjornholm was taken over. He’s doing a brilliant job since. But, know, I didn’t have any time to write.

Andrew Roy (19:45.634)

Yeah, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (20:05.386)

when I was doing that. was just so busy. In January 2012, started a blog, still going timgazer.com blog. The latest blog post is about a family reunion and a really good bottle of wine at 9,000 feet in northern New Mexico a few weeks ago. But you know, again, the book is just about, it’s an in-depth book on deductive tasting.

Andrew Roy (20:20.088)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (20:30.914)

And it comes from a place of me trying to figure it out because when I was taking the exams, you know, eons ago, I was a really bad taster, really lousy and tasting didn’t make sense. And so, and it really didn’t, I had to work really hard at it. And even after I passed the MS tasting exam on the second attempt, I didn’t feel like I really had a clue. And so it was, it became kind of an obsession to figure it out, but also figure it out so that I could share it for other people. So wouldn’t be so hard, right?

And so that’s what the book is about. It’s really for anyone. I mean, I had to go back at Madeline Triffon. She’s a dear friend and fellow MS. She read it and she goes, you know, you can’t control who’s going to read the book. You need to make this book so everybody can at least have a clue what you’re talking about. And so I wrote all the chapters so that there’s an introduction. And then after the fact, there’s how you can apply the information. But it’s all about basic skills, advanced skills.

Andrew Roy (21:16.77)

Hmm.

Tim Gaiser (21:27.624)

And then there’s a whole chapter on improving your smell and taste memory and there’s some essays. But I hope it’s one of those, I hope it’s a reference that people can use over time and will help them figure out what they do internally already. Because by the time someone’s of drinking age, they are long past the point mentally where they do things. From the time we’re infants, we smell things and somehow remember them.

And so by the time you get to be 21 and ostensibly you’re of drinking age, you you have ways of doing things and remembering how things smell and taste. So I hope what the book provides in part is just a way of you becoming aware of what you do, which is unique. And everybody has the same nervous system, but we all are wired differently. Some of us wired really differently. And so hopefully that’s what the book can bring us some strategies to help you figure that out, you know.

Andrew Roy (22:23.662)

No, I mean, it’s fantastic. At this point, I’ve had three of my servers go through and get their certified and I have the fourth working right now. And I’ve just, in addition to what tastings we do for pre-shift meetings and that sort of thing, I’ve made all of them get this book. it’s been a huge help because, yeah, it just.

Tim Gaiser (22:32.994)

That’s great.

Tim Gaiser (22:40.328)

good. good. All right. Yep. Well, I would say next year the book’s going to be revised because what it doesn’t have, it doesn’t have a glossary or an index, needs both of those. And certainly, you know, I’m going to do another serious edit on it and any idea making it, you know, simpler, you know, because simple is good. This is such a complex thing that it needs to be simple, you know, in terms of how it’s explained.

Andrew Roy (22:52.216)

Mmm.

Andrew Roy (23:07.138)

You know, actually that is a good point. One of my favorite lines from Strongwater, I have it written here, is, we communicate about wine to the consumer by making the complex simpler without dumbing it down. And I just, I thought that was so good. I highlighted that right away. was like.

Tim Gaiser (23:20.342)

Yeah.

Yeah, well, know, easier said than done, Again, man, it’s a tightrope because it’s, I mean, that’s all the unspoken things about, you know, being a server or a sommelier or someone at a table talking about wine is in somehow you have to read the guests what they really want and their

Andrew Roy (23:27.906)

That’s the whole problem, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (23:50.358)

you know, their depth of knowledge about wine and how much they want to know. And so that’s not easy to do. And so that presupposes that you’ve got a pretty good backlog, then you can talk sensibly about wine, but that also your sense of the fact of not giving someone too much information. Because then, I mean, they just don’t want it. They just want a nice bottle of wine to share with their future ex-boyfriend, right?

Andrew Roy (24:16.719)

or you walk to that table and it’s their first anniversary and they don’t care, they haven’t even noticed they’re in a restaurant. Just bring them the bottle, it’s gonna be fine.

Tim Gaiser (24:20.32)

Yeah

Yeah, it seems fair. And that’s a good point because their first anniversary, if you give them the right bottle, they’re going to remember it forever, right? It’s going to be a thing. they’re just going to say, they’re going to, you know, who knows how many times in the future they’ll say, you remember that dinner at the restaurant for our first anniversary and that bottle of wine was so amazing? That’s the kind of thing that you can help create. So, yeah, that makes it all worth it, too.

Andrew Roy (24:52.75)

So with your book, The Message in the Bottle, I was hoping we could talk, I’m sure you’ve talked about this endlessly, but I find it fascinating. I think it’s the basic set. Like how you put together that whole tasting method, because I think that is one of the things that helped me. And I’m hoping later before we get done here, I did want to ask you two about, so my personal issue with tasting.

Tim Gaiser (25:05.762)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (25:22.102)

I think a lot of people suffer from this, is I get in my head. And so like, even when I got into the advanced, did, I passed theory and service, and on tasting, I think it was between glass four and five, I just got so nervous and kind of in my head, I lost time. I didn’t finish the sixth, but it cut out enough points that I didn’t. So like, you have any good tactics for that, or is that something you see in a lot of people? I’m sure.

Tim Gaiser (25:26.838)

Hmm.

Tim Gaiser (25:50.336)

Yeah, sure. I you know, that’s I mean, that’s test anxiety. mean, people, you know, the thing about our exams is that they’re kind of like auditions. So, you know, you work really hard and you practice and you practice and and then you come in there on game day and then your nervous system has to has to cooperate. So you it has to allow you to bring your game right. Or because your nervous system can only do one thing at a time. It can’t freak out and it can’t

function and you know allow you to do it you can’t do it at same time so again that’s a whole separate skill set i mean there’s a couple things in you know the third section of the tasting book that are about that but they really you somehow have to be able to shut the world out and then really focus on the set of wines and i mean there’s just there are ways to do it

Andrew Roy (26:21.55)

Thank

Tim Gaiser (26:48.674)

one of the major things is eye positions that trigger certain emotional states. mean, there’s a chapter called clearing the mechanism in the book. That’s exactly about that. And because that’s what you need to do. need basically to shut the world out except for the set of six glasses in front of you and that is your world. And from there, you need to know the grid cold. It just needs to be like a shopping list that lives inside and you’re just gonna go through it.

Andrew Roy (26:57.975)

Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (27:17.922)

And then there’s a sense of curiosity that has to be stronger than anything. Like, what am I smelling? What am I seeing? What am I tasting? What’s in the glass? Constantly you’re asking yourself that. And even if you’re not saying it internally, there’s the feeling of what’s there. And then from there, your brain’s gonna find the answer. It’s gonna find an answer because you’ve tasted enough, you’re there. And the grid again is like an outline or a shopping list. And you’re just going through it saying, okay, well, what’s the color? What’s the secondary color? What’s the brightness level?

what’s the viscosity? What are, you know, what am I smelling for fruit? What are the non-fruits? What’s important? You know, and then you get to the structure and you taste that and say, how much acidity? And your brain is going to answer those questions really quickly, right? And so it’s really a question answer thing that you’re going through. And then it’s kind of like being a machine because you’re not doing anything creative. This, tasting exams are not creative. They’re you showing your skill.

Andrew Roy (28:01.806)

Hmm.

Tim Gaiser (28:14.494)

at a very specific method and doing the same thing six times. There is nothing fancy or creative there. But it’s just you being really attentive to what’s in the glass. So if your mental energy is on that, then the thoughts of you projecting something onto the wine rarely creep in, right? Because there’s no room for it. Again, it’s trying to do two things at the same time mentally, which is, you can, I guess. I don’t know. But that’s just it.

Andrew Roy (28:41.422)

Okay.

Tim Gaiser (28:44.162)

And then, you know, and then where the book goes is that, you know, there are eye positions for both of those things, you know, and I can tell you having sat across the people from, I don’t know, hundreds and hundreds of students and exams and even watched my fellow MSs and some MWs the way they taste, when we pick up a glass and start smelling our eyes tend to go to the same place every time and they’re there for a split second and then they move. And but the eyes going to the same place is one of the ways we’re consistent with our tasting.

Andrew Roy (28:45.71)

you

Tim Gaiser (29:13.538)

And then where they move is to get the answer to the question they just asked. You know, what am I smelling? And the eyes pop up and then go, okay, that’s internally, that’s, that’s what I’m smelling. So that wasn’t an answer to your question. Yeah. So that’s the answer to your question. So the thing about the basic set is the old Pareto’s law, the law of the vital few, the 80-20. that’s in anything, 20 % of what’s there tends to do 80 % of the work.

Andrew Roy (29:25.582)

But it was, in a bleak way, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (29:43.622)

or is 80 % of the results. And taking that into another context, in wine there’s probably about 25 to 30 aromas and flavors that are in most wines. So things like green apple and mushroom and roses and vanilla and potting soil, things like that. There’s a set of things, some of them fruit, some of them winemaking, some of them environment.

And if your memory for those things in terms of what they smell and in some cases tastes like is really good, when you pick up a glass of wine, they pop. They’re there. They’re really there. And so my thing is the way my brain works is to what I call front load is literally to work backwards. So if I’m working on my memory of those things without wine, I can do that any number of times. I don’t have to be tasting.

So that when I do pick up a glass of wine, the synapses that have to do with smell and taste memory are really honed. And then those aromas and flavors are there. And then you can put together, you connect dots easier, theoretically. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (30:51.532)

No, yeah, that’s… So I’m glad that we’re talking through this too because as I’m reconstructing this in my head, you know, I’m sure that you get a lot of questions about how you use modalities too. Because that’s one of those that I could find some… Like, some benefit, but I don’t know if I maybe wasn’t doing it well enough. Maybe I’m just not enough of a visual thinker.

Tim Gaiser (31:04.706)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (31:19.958)

And I know that you say that people are all visual tasters, basically. It’s all like, from what you’ve experienced.

Tim Gaiser (31:24.266)

Yeah, yeah, I mean the majority of us in a similar way. There are people who are true synesthetes and they’re Martians the way they think. I mean they just operate in a totally different way than we do. You know, I’d say one, two or three people out of a hundred. you know, Sir Lucero who’s an MS is that way, he’s a synesthete. And his way of internally processing wine is just so different from mine.

Gillian Handelman who’s head of education for Kendall Jackson. Same way in fact you know people listening to this you ought to go to the Kendall Jackson website and just put her name in Gillian with one L G I L I A N Handelman and and then just you know search on her name and she has pictures for all the great varieties for what she sees and it’s kind of wild it’s kind of wild because you know people

Andrew Roy (32:06.787)

Hmm.

Andrew Roy (32:14.662)

that’s cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (32:18.963)

They literally, both of them project shapes out of their heads or their bodies for the wines.

Andrew Roy (32:24.706)

Well, I’ve often wondered if you had some sort of synesthesia, because you do talk about scales that you’ve sort of pictured in your mind, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (32:29.026)

Sure. I mean, constructs, mean, that’s with structure, mean, with acid, alcohol and tannin. But, you know, for the internal stuff, you know, like the fruit, non-fruit and all that good stuff, it’s images for me. You know, I put my nose in the glass, I go, what’s there? I look down into the left, eyes pop out front, about 10 to 12 feet away. And then in my personal IMAX theater, images just start appearing really quickly. And once they appear, they go, they sink down.

and they’re by category. So there’s fruit, not non-fruit, earth and wood, four categories. And they’re kind of like cafeteria plates that are stacked on end. So they’re behind each other and they’re kind of slightly, I can see them all. And if something’s really important, it’s in the front and it’s big. And when I taste the wine from smelling it, they rearrange. But the categories, if I try to move them around, they snap back, they don’t move. And I never consciously, I never knew this until someone helped me figure it out, guy named Tim Halbom.

And then for structure, when I say it’s for structure, I do. I cease like a scale. And there’s a red button on it and there’s the low, medium, minus, medium, medium, plus, high. And I just watch the button move and I point to it. And that way, visually, I have something to confirm when I’m sensing, feeling in my mouth. Like how much acid? And if you don’t have that, that’s really tough to figure out. I think you have like a beavis and butthead moment. You just don’t, you don’t know what’s going on, right?

Andrew Roy (33:42.893)

Hmm.

Andrew Roy (33:56.398)

Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (33:56.414)

And so you’re saying, have no idea how much acid that is, but then if you’re watching something and go, yeah, it’s right there. So that’s how I do the structure. And then, you know, obviously I have an internal list of, you know, the impact compounds that are important, you know, things like carbonic maceration and stem inclusion, pyrazines for Sauvignon Blanc, Rotondone, white pepper for Grunewald Liner, what else, but tries things like that. And so they’re important.

Andrew Roy (34:24.686)

Thank you.

Tim Gaiser (34:24.866)

compounds and those to me you know those are literally lighting up and when I’m trying to if I’m if I were blind tasting those things that group a pattern it’s like a pattern of things would come out in front and I would go well you got this this this and this and the structure is this odds are it’s this and that sounds kind of science fiction but you know you would be surprised a lot of people have some kind of system like that but they may not be aware of it

Andrew Roy (34:49.72)

But that didn’t happen.

Tim Gaiser (34:51.53)

because it’s tough to do something and be aware of your process at the same time.

Andrew Roy (34:56.41)

Yeah, I’m wondering because I know that music and wine have such a big place in your you’ve written about both a lot of different places when you were in Band when you were playing did you also have a visual representation because I know you’re a brass instrument, right? Yeah

Tim Gaiser (35:02.53)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (35:09.239)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Gaiser (35:14.482)

Right trumpet. Yeah, so well, yeah, I mean at the unconscious level in which case it would be really fast. But I will tell you way back in fourth grade when I first started to play the trumpet, you know, the book that we were supposed to use in band wasn’t available for like a week, right? And so I had my cornet and then I would try to practice or play things and I didn’t know fingerings. I didn’t know anything. And so the first week was just hell. You know, I was in my bedroom making noise. I’m sure I drove my

Andrew Roy (35:39.416)

Thank

Tim Gaiser (35:44.418)

family nuts. And then after a week the book came into the music store and I went down and we bought it. And I remember this though all of a sudden there was a fingering chart, you know the trumpet only has three keys right? And so I was practicing and I was getting the fingering downs and I could see notes and associate them to a fingering and a pitch. And once I figured that out something snapped and I played through the book in a weekend. So that when I came back for Band on Monday

I could play all the songs. And it’s not because I was a good trumpet player. No, it’s because for me personally, the idea of being able to see something and equate it to sound and then kinesthetic, it was there. And that was the click. And what’s a parallel is that eons later when I was studying for the MS tasting exam, literally the first time I took the MS exam, you know, the fourth exam, the tasting exam, I just crashed and burned. And it’s because they didn’t know the grit well enough.

Andrew Roy (36:23.95)

Mmm.

Tim Gaiser (36:40.066)

And when you know the grid well enough is when you own it and it’s inside. When you can see it. You know? And it’s like, it’s always there. And you always know what’s next. Until you get to that point, and until I got to that point, tasting didn’t make lot of sense to me. It was hard. I was inconsistent. But once the grid went inside and I mentally had rehearsed going through wines with it enough, then all of a sudden it made sense and I knew the process. So that’s what I tell students to do. You have to know it that well. So, yeah.

Andrew Roy (36:52.333)

Thanks

Andrew Roy (37:10.132)

Mm-hmm now the reason I was asking is so I was alto sax and I And in my head I was thinking if it is kind of more of a feeling but I think that I’m on your camp now because You need those visual representations of the notes to to relate to the kinesthetic experience like you’re saying I think that what I’m running from Yeah

Tim Gaiser (37:15.362)

Okay.

Tim Gaiser (37:29.888)

Yeah. Well, the good thing, I mean, Andrew, Andrew, the good thing about saxophone, if you push the right keys down, you get the right note. Whereas with the trumpet, there’s no guarantee because of the harmonic series. You you you could put the right fingering down and come out with something totally different. Happens all the time. And odds are it’s really loud, too.

Andrew Roy (37:39.169)

Exactly.

Andrew Roy (37:47.074)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (37:51.15)

So yeah, I think what I was landing on is, unfortunately, I think I just need to learn the grid better. And I was hoping I could talk my way out of that, but probably not.

Tim Gaiser (37:59.454)

Yeah. No, no, you know, and you know what’s cool about that, Andrew, think about it for a second. I mean, you know, someone in your position, you know, you want to pass the advanced, right, the advanced exam, and then you’re to go on and you can prepare for the MS exam. And at some point, you know, hopefully you’re going to pass it. Because what you want to be is we want to switch sides. So in the future, you want to be on my side and you want to be interviewing people who are studying for the exams, in which case you

You know the grid so well and you know tasting so well that you can teach it. So that’s where you have to get to is that you know the grid so well that you could explain it to anybody. Even your friends who aren’t into wine, you could, you know, without piece of paper or anything, you could say, you know, when we look at wine in an exam, here’s what we do. Yeah, we look at, we see clarity. Clarity means filtering. We need the color and the color in red wine depends on these things and white wines. And you can explain it because if you can teach it, it’s in long-term memory and you own it.

that’s where the grid has to go. You have to think about it enough to where you can explain it and if you can explain it you own it.

Andrew Roy (38:57.23)

Mm.

Andrew Roy (39:06.904)

Perfect, yeah. Yeah, and I haven’t done it from memory. I’ve done it classes for servers, but I think you’re right. It just takes time. Yeah, I need more work and more study, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (39:18.614)

Yeah, I don’t… Yeah, but you know, the thing is, it’s a fun thing because this is where you’re working with your memory and again, you don’t need wine to do that because tasting, you know, and you’re a busy guy and you only have so much time to taste, but you can take a minute or two minutes and you can think about, you know, the grid and then you can start applying it to classic grapes and wine. You can say, well, you know, you know, you think about how Zinfandel and Syrah, Shiraz compare.

and how they’re very similar, but they’re really different, you know? And what’s different about them? Well, the structure can be really similar, but at the same time, there’s all these savory sanguine notes in sarah, shiraz, that they’re just not in symphodel, you know? So there’s things like that, and this, that’s your memory. That’s your memory working. And you know, when you pick up a glass of wine, it’s all perception, recognition, and memory. So.

Andrew Roy (40:11.0)

No, and I’m glad that you brought up that Zinfandel Shara. So one thing I told myself I wanted to remember to ask you, did you come up with the term evil dwarves or did you steal that from someone? Because that, aww, perfect. I’ve used that just so you know, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (40:24.77)

Okay, so yeah, have to know, so yeah, so of course, you know, I have kids, my daughter Maria is 35, my son Patrick is 32, but Patrick has cognitive disabilities. He lives with us. And so he still is all about Disney Dreamworks and Pixar. So that, you know, even though for parents, their kids get older, they become adults and that goes away. It’s never gone away. So I can talk SpongeBob episodes. I can…

I can deliberate endlessly on the two versions of Aladdin. I mean, just on and on, because Patrick and we talk about this stuff. So the dwarves, you know, I mean, there’s a remake of Snow White this year that was released. So we were talking about all the dwarves, you know, and how dope he can talk. And you find that out at the end of the movie, all this stuff. So the evil dwarves came from that, Snow White, right? But I also thought about, you know, for me, I remember studying for the MS-Tasting exam.

Andrew Roy (41:15.63)

Okay.

Tim Gaiser (41:20.822)

And there were just certain white wines and red wines that just confused me. And the reason they confused me is A, they looked alike, B, they had similar fruit qualities, and at the same time, they all have different impact compounds and sets of structure things. And so that’s the focus. And so the chapter on evil dwarves is really to how all these grapes and wines are different from each other. I mean, with whites, you’ve got chinenblok, you’ve got Riesling, Alberini, Grunewaldliner, and Pinot Gris, Pinot Grigio.

Andrew Roy (41:49.856)

Yeah? Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (41:50.772)

right? yeah, and then for red wines it’s all the relatively speaking thinner skin red grapes like Grenache, Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, Sangiovese, and then Nebbiolo, anything else, Gamay. Yeah, so it’s about those and literally how to set them up, how to work with them, and then how to learn them so that they become like different people that you don’t confuse, you know. And that takes repetition and I think you do that by tasting them in pairs and obviously you know you get a Coravin.

Andrew Roy (42:12.322)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Gaiser (42:20.226)

You gotta own a core of them. you’re tasting. Yeah, because otherwise it’s been too much money. you know, so you buy really good examples of, let’s just say a Beaujolais Vélage and then something like Yanti Classico, which is to me is like Elvis and Beyonce. They’re so different. And then you taste them repeatedly, you know, over course of two to three days. And at some point your mind just snaps. It goes, yeah, okay. Now I see.

Andrew Roy (42:22.294)

I got a corvin thanks to you, so thank you.

Andrew Roy (42:41.912)

Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (42:48.64)

You know, these wines, there’s no confusing them. And they live now in different places in your head. The problem is when wines get too close together when you think of them, in terms of how you visualize them, if they’re too close together, you confuse them. And if they get farther apart, you go, yeah, yeah, okay, these are different.

Andrew Roy (43:08.574)

awesome. So I did want to make sure we talk a little bit more about Strongwater too because yeah great great book.

Tim Gaiser (43:15.316)

Yeah. Strongwater is a fun book. I hope people are listening to this and not because it’s shame with self-promotion, but I hope they buy it because it’s a fun book, right? So it’s just a book of essays on food, wine and restaurants and my experiences. Like, you know, my first restaurant job of busing tables in a pancake house here in Albuquerque from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. yeah, yeah. man. She was like Tammy Wynette’s evil twin. She was tough.

Andrew Roy (43:25.016)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (43:37.738)

yeah, Darla, good old Darla.

Tim Gaiser (43:45.41)

She was really tough. And it was a time where she would just go through the din- you know, not a dining room, but she would go through the restaurant with a lit cigarette, just, yeah. I mean, she was something. But then the first bar I worked at, you know, on Union Street in San Francisco, that had a really bad rap problem, right? And I was a part of that. And it, yeah. And then- Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Andrew Roy (43:45.986)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (44:03.431)

yes. The rat that jumped over the sleeping guy. had to laugh at that. What happened? Nothing.

Tim Gaiser (44:13.694)

And there, yeah, there were a lot more rat stories. mean, that restaurant was like a Fellini movie. It really was. was something else. Yeah. And then, and then there’s, you know, stories about, you know, being on wine trips, the scary ass wine, you know, car rides, the total shower tragedies, you know, I think when you’re, you’re on the road a lot, the one thing you have to figure out when you get in your hotel room is how the shower works. You don’t want to be surprised at six a.m. the next morning when you don’t have any time.

And then there’s just a lot of things like that. There’s evolution of a palette, you know, where I write about these fictitious stages, you know. When you begin and you like sweet wines, that’s the Katy Perry phase, right? And then your Cabernet becomes monster truck pull. Chardonnay is like smooth jazz, you know. So anyway, there’s just a lot of things that I meant to be, you know, just to be kind of not snarky, but funny and, you know.

poking fun at the wine business more than anything.

Andrew Roy (45:16.648)

Sure, yeah. think, so I had a couple things I wanted to talk to you about here on that. The first one we don’t really have to talk about, a really good line from the beginning is, over time I’ve come to believe that there are two great equalizers in life, parenthood and the restaurant business. But also in that section, I really knew that it was towards the beginning, this part, where you said that you figured out you had restaurant eyes. Six cents.

Tim Gaiser (45:33.078)

Yes.

Tim Gaiser (45:41.41)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (45:44.046)

you were able to articulate something I noticed about myself when I first went into a bar that never could. Like, oh, I belong here. I can see what needs to be done. So it was cool seeing someone else who had seen that before.

Tim Gaiser (45:49.602)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Gaiser (45:55.274)

Right, right. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (46:00.224)

Yeah, the problem is that it never leaves you, right? I mean, I’ve worked in a restaurant over 30 years, but I know people who worked in restaurants for a long time and it just never leaves you. And it’s kind of a curse because you can be, you know, in a restaurant dining and you’re looking around and you can see what needs to be done. You have this urge to go do something, right? Clear a table or to…

Andrew Roy (46:03.789)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Gaiser (46:22.018)

you know, refill water and stuff like that. But it’s, you know, if you have that the restaurant business is a lot easier if you don’t have it, you struggle. Right. And unless you just need to be fast. mean, I think people who and I could be wrong here, but people who are really good at restaurants have some kind of attention deficit disorder in that they they they can keep a lot of things in their internal field that need to be done in five minutes.

Andrew Roy (46:22.062)

help somehow, yeah.

Tim Gaiser (46:51.33)

And those things, they can prioritize on the fly and things get done and something else comes in and they’re just, they’re used to just keeping a lot of stuff in their head that they need to do like right now. And some kind of rarefied form of triage. The problem is when people like that leave the restaurant business, you know, a nine to five job is really hard because instead of five minutes to do 10 things, they have eight hours. And my first job out of the restaurant business was selling.

I was very fortunate. I got to work for the Heitz family in Napa Valley, Kathleen Heitz, and of course, Joe. And yeah, was amazing. But yeah, I found selling wine in most of my accounts were in San Francisco and I would just, where I lived, and I would just, I would get stuff done. And I would be done by noon or one o’clock and I would be done. Yeah. And so that’s, and so sales for somebody like me was perfect, right?

And oddly enough, know, after I worked for Peter Granoff, dear friend who started Virtual Vineyards Wine.com, the original Wine.com, and after it went away in 2001, I became an independent contractor, which was perfect. And that’s what I’ve done since 2001. In fact, I’m sitting in this home office and that’s what I still do. So yeah, so that really fitted me. But the restaurant business, know, is certain kinds of people do really well at it.

Andrew Roy (48:05.579)

Thank you.

Tim Gaiser (48:17.345)

And some people have it in their blood and they’re very special. You wish you could clone them, you know. Because you know, there’s a lot of people that shouldn’t be in the restaurant business or even, you know, well.

Andrew Roy (48:22.837)

Yeah

Andrew Roy (48:31.97)

Yeah, no. And my wife, we met in restaurant, she’s nine to five now, and she still has those dreams. And I wanted to throw that out there because I think, it’s been a long time since I’ve read a book with a dream nightmare, and I laughed out loud. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (48:36.886)

Mmm, chocolate.

there we go again.

Sadly you

Tim Gaiser (48:47.298)

Yeah, sadly you have to tell her that they don’t ever go away. Yeah, so my wife Carla, know, she was a bartender. Literally, she was in restaurants about eight years longer than me. So, you know, the year after I passed the EMS, you know, we had Patrick and Carla did, and I really wanted to get off the floor so I’d have more time at home to help with, you know, now a four-year-old and an infant.

Andrew Roy (48:54.049)

I know, but…

Tim Gaiser (49:15.778)

And so that was my way of doing it. And Carla, on the other hand, loved bartending. Loved it. If she could still do it, she would still do it. But she still has bartending dreams. She still does. She had this really horrible one a few nights ago. And I just went, whoa. And I still have weird restaurant dreams too. But sometimes they combine with trumpet nightmares too. So I get both things going. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (49:42.99)

Yeah. Well, I mean, if nothing else, pick up Strong Water so you can hear about the white Russians and the soup pairing from Tim Straye. So yeah. No, I laughed out loud when I read that. I was like, only in dreamland would someone do that. Well, ladies and gentlemen, Tim Gazer, where should people listening follow you and where can they find out more about what you do?

Tim Gaiser (49:49.871)

Yeah. yeah. Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (49:58.698)

Yes, yes.

Tim Gaiser (50:07.362)

Yeah, so TimGazer.com and then the blog is there. And then I have a, you know, a sub stack for all the non-mine stuff. So every week I’m publishing either a blog or a sub stack and the sub stack is called hits and missives. And again, that’s where I really push the envelope in terms of, know, know, snarky funny things. Sometimes with language and sometimes with other life experiences, you know, growing up in a big Catholic family, that kind of thing.

Andrew Roy (50:16.119)

Mmm, okay.

Tim Gaiser (50:37.642)

or you know.

Andrew Roy (50:37.856)

I did see one about automatopoeias, I think, recently.

Tim Gaiser (50:40.418)

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, where I made up a bunch of new ones. So yeah. And so that’s, that’s fun. So we just, you know, urge people to follow me. People with wine questions, you know, if you go on the website, my email’s on it. You know, don’t email me about relationship advice. You know, someone did that once. It was kind of strange. But you know, if you do have a warning question.

Andrew Roy (51:00.226)

Yeah, we’ll find out that Tim’s very brutally honest, unfortunately.

Tim Gaiser (51:03.842)

No, actually, I’m a really nice guy who will tell you to go find, you know, a couple’s counselor or something like that. yeah, so, so anything but about a whole people check out the tasting book. And, you know, there are plans for an advanced tasting book too. And we’ll see what the schedule for that is, you know, I have the outline for it. A few things are written. But, you know, I also want to think, you know, I think about,

Andrew Roy (51:09.582)

Well, maybe more people should email you questions about relationships.

Tim Gaiser (51:32.93)

really love to somehow bring in the MS community, you know, which is a group of the best tasters on the planet and figure out how we can do something for, you know, the industry at large with tasting. And I’m not sure what that is, but I’m working on that too. So, and I’m working on two books at the present.

One is called First Glass, and it’s not a beginning line book, but it’s a book I needed in graduate school when I got interested in wine. I had all these questions, and I was just afraid to ask them because people would think I was really stupid and I didn’t know. You know, a question like, you know, do red wines go through malolactic? I remember asking a guy in a wine shop that question, and he looked at me like I was an idiot, and I thought, ugh. And at that point, I thought, you know, if I ever learn about wine, I’m never going to do that.

Andrew Roy (52:05.059)

Mmm.

Tim Gaiser (52:24.738)

I’m to answer the question. That was a good question. the book is that kind of thing about everything from winemaking to grape growing to you’re in a restaurant, what do you do with a wine list? You’re in a retail shop. How do you pick out a good wine? And so it’s that kind of book. It’s not for a beginner per se, but it’s for someone who likes wine a lot, who drinks it, but wants to learn more. So it’s called First Glass. And then there is another book on non…

Andrew Roy (52:25.132)

Mmm… Yeah.

Tim Gaiser (52:53.48)

fiction essays, hits and missives from the sub stack, but also new stuff too. Because I write every day that I can. If I’m on the road, I don’t, but I usually write for an hour to two hours. I started something today and hopefully we’ll get it finished this afternoon. I try to write a thousand words a day. Doesn’t always get there, but yeah.

Andrew Roy (53:13.102)

Tim, thank you for taking time out of your day and it was a pleasure.

Tim Gaiser (53:17.344)

Yeah, Andrew, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking to you. yeah, yeah, best of luck.

Andrew Roy (53:23.822)

Just housekeeping things, so we’ll call that over. Whenever we close this, do you mind leaving your browser up just until it says it’s done uploading? Usually it doesn’t take long, but just in case.

Tim Gaiser (53:33.922)

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, and then if you want to chat after the fact, if you need anything, you got my contact info. And we need to talk about, at some point, about your theory. Because next year, you got to get over, OK? Then you can do it. All right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I’d like to give you some ideas to create some templates so you have, you know, you’ve got kind of something in place to where you know how deep you need to go on stuff. I think that’s the thing.

Andrew Roy (53:43.019)

Sure.

Andrew Roy (53:49.526)

Okay, I know I can do it. I know I can do it.

Andrew Roy (54:01.506)

Okay.

Tim Gaiser (54:02.55)

Because people, mean, there’s so much information you could study that you tend not to be efficient and you don’t have a lot of time. So you’ve got to have the right templates in place and you can look at them and go, okay, this is what I need to know for Burgundy. This is kind of at the advanced level. This is what I need. And this is how it maps over to Germany. And this is how it maps over to spirits, right? And just ways you can study that’ll make it easier, okay?

Andrew Roy (54:19.084)

Hmm.

Andrew Roy (54:28.75)

I would love that. Maybe we can talk without a video about me with a pen and paper. I’ll just, yeah. So, I’ll…

Tim Gaiser (54:33.058)

Yes!

Yeah, what we can do is we could do this. Is there an AI function on this where you can just do a, whatchamacallit, summary. If not, you can do that on Zoom, right? So there’s an AI function where you just push the button and it’s going to write a summary. And that way you have everything. Yeah. But let’s do that in the near future. You know, I’m here all next week.

Andrew Roy (54:49.388)

Hmm. I think so.

Andrew Roy (54:55.564)

Yeah. Okay, yeah, that’s a good idea too.

Tim Gaiser (55:03.158)

gone the next week, but let’s do it so.

Andrew Roy (55:05.134)

I’ll also do an email and see what works best for you and we’ll make it happen. Thank you so much. Have fun.

Tim Gaiser (55:10.846)

Okay, all right, cool. Hey, this has been fun chatting. Yeah, take care. Bye.