What Can Science Teachers Learn from the Wine Expert?

Abstract

This chapter recounts Denzel’s lived experiences as a child to show how traumatic events in his life informed his decision to become a wine expert and to describe and explain how he systematically learned to identify and describe the various sensory properties of wine, such as its aroma, fruitiness and various taste sensations. The findings reveal that the surrounding conditions on the farm where Denzel was raised shaped his thinking and influenced his career path. The findings further point out that learning, although extremely complex, involves the ‘sum of the parts’ of the body which constitute a co-ordinated whole. The insights gleaned from this phenomenological investigation lead to the conclusion that the body, together with the objects it perceives, constitutes the entire field of perception.