Cork Dork: A Wine-Fuelled Journey into the Art of Sommeliers and the Science of Taste

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The Kitchen Confidential of wine: Read this book, and you’ll never be intimidated by wine—or wine snobs—again. But I resist the idea that the best way to get to know wine is to pattern yourself after a sommelier.

There are big moments that should have a lot of emotional payoff, but they didn’t land because I wasn’t able to become emotionally invested in Bosker’s plight. Despite its failure to demystify wine, it’s impossible to read Cork Dork without learning a whole lot about wine, and wanting to learn much, much more; it is therefore a huge accomplishment. In the heart of Eastern Europe, nestled beneath the picturesque landscapes of Moldova, lies a hidden gem that captivates wine enthusiasts from around the globe—the Mileștii Mici winery. The one aspect of the book that occasionally turned me off is the fact that one of the main recurring characters, a sommelier and friend of the author’s named Morgan, hews very closely to that tired old trope, the brilliant eccentric man who can also be extremely annoying.

Preserving Your Passion: A Glimpse into Luxurious Wine SanctuariesFor the discerning oenophile with a penchant for collecting rare and exquisite wines, ensuring the proper storage of these liquid treasures is. Bosker was trained by Grieco to serve as a sommelier in this fashion, and it’s how she operated on the floor of Terroir. Reads like a wine lover’s equivalent of Dante’s ‘The Divine Comedy’: There is paradise, but only after glimpses of purgatory and hell…A funny, thought-provoking and at times frightening look at the sublime tastes, enormous egos and curious rules of a profession that is both insanely rigorous and occasionally ridiculous.

Bianca Bosker’s “Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste” is a compendium of bewitching and sometimes disgusting facts.

The 2014 Silverado Vineyards Petit Verdot Mount George Vineyard uses one of five common Bordeaux varietals. I like and firmly agree with the quote: "Every person has the capacity to find and savor the soul that lives in wine--and in other sensory experiences, if you know how to look for it. I missed the news a couple years ago that there’s going to be a Bollywood rendition of that Jon Favreau movie Chef. Readers will certainly come away from the book knowing more about wine and likely eager to explore it further, but even those less inclined to imbibe will be intrigued.

If you have wondered about the mysteries of wine, and the airs of people who claim to know something about it, Cork Dork is essential reading. If Bosker finds troubling the “mindset of wine connoisseurs telling people what to taste,” you could hardly find a better poster child for that approach than Paul Grieco, despite the casual wear and strange facial hair. In this delightfully written and keenly observed book, Bianca Bosker helps us become connoisseurs not only of wine but also of people whose passions would more aptly be described as obsessions. Between her hilarious exploits and thoughtful meditations on wine and life, you’ll want to stay for just one more.

Her articles have appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the New Yorker, among other publications. Bianca Bosker could have written a really excellent book about all of this, had she not insisted on inserting personal bullshit that makes her come off as a pretentious Basic Bitch who muscles her way into places she shouldn't be. It offers an insight into the science and art of wine, the business and politics of the wine industry, and the personal stories of those who are obsessed with it.

Bosker meets a variety of people in the wine industry, from master sommeliers and winemakers to collectors and enthusiasts. But the refrain of "I was a big-wig journalist and gave it up to try this wine thing out because how hard can it be even when people dedicate their lives to it and I just want to drink" is infuriating. Cork Dork clears up countless misconceptions about wine, and demonstrates that it is indeed a skill, and does not need to be pretentious in the way many make it out to be, for the sake of enhancing their own status. Scientists only realized some 70 years later that the whole tongue is sensitive to each of the five tastes – that is, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami.

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