TASTING food and wine with Tim Hanni is a weird experience. He tells you to suck a lemon, then sip an oak-edged chardonnay. Somehow, the wine becomes docile.
Then he suggests you follow bites of a tart Granny Smith apple with rough cabernet sauvignon. Your mouth feels similar to a battleground - the tartness grapples with the wine's kick.
But sip that same wine and nibble a wedge of blue cheese. The wine becomes soft, buttery and luscious.
With Mr Hanni's help and knowledge, a wine can taste like heaven (the cabernet sauvignon with cheese) or toothpaste.
'It's all about the cause and effect,' says the rock musician, wine retailer and chef-turned-wine teacher.
When the native of Miami, Florida, holds a tasting seminar on wine and food, go, if you can get in. His visits to Hong Kong - about twice a year - are not frequent enough and his classes are jammed.