Reading a glass of wine
In the cellar, Oliver treats tasting like model building. First, a disciplined “data intake”: color, nose, structure. Then he frames hypotheses—old world or new, high acidity suggesting longevity, tannins implying different barrels. He checks for confounders (temperature, glass shape), compares to reference bottles, and writes a tight note. The ritual isn’t snobbery; it’s calibration. He trains perception the way he trains loss curves: separate signal from story, guard against anchoring, and document assumptions. By the last sip he’s thinking in ranges, not single points—exactly how he prefers to price risk and how he teaches clients to make decisions under fog.