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I used to be SUPER INTO wine, even though I couldn't afford super nice bottles, but these days I'm more mildly interested than wholly enthused. As much as I liked Cork Dork, it didn't necessarily make me want to drink more wine. But that's OK, because Bosker doesn't really have a goal of making the reader drink more wine. What she really wants is for all of us to notice the things we're experiencing, be they tastes or smells, sights or sounds. She strives in this book to become a certified sommelier, but ultimately, her message is that we don't need to be certified in anything to have a full and fascinating life. All we really need to do is learn to pay attention to the world happening around us. I'll raise a glass to that. Speaking as someone who barely knows a good Bordeaux from a bottle of Boone's Farm, I was charmed and entertained by this book. Everywhere she goes—whether it's into a busy kitchen or a vineyard, or into her own head—Bianca Bosker takes us with her.” –John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead I'm sure that there are nearly as many of these as there are obscure subcultures to write about, but a best-selling example of this format is Moonwalking with Einstein, about the subculture of memory arts.
Disclaimer: Many thanks to Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read and review. Please assured that my opinions are honest. Do you like wine? I like wine. Do like a well researched book with an engaging writing style, entertaining stories plus a hearty dose of clear and informative information? I found this book to be all of those things....but again, I like wine so I was interested in this journey. That being said, the Bosker we meet in the book is the type of person who takes up the whole sidewalk with her friends, who inserts herself into conversations she has no business being in, who loudly makes the party about her, who incorrectly corrects people when they're just trying to tell an anecdote. She's the girl at the party I always hate, but have to invite, because she's friends with BlahBlah and we'll never hear the end of it if she's slighted. Also, she'll probably show up even if she's not invited and make more if a scene than if an invitation had been extended. She is obsessed and tenacious. She somehow wrangles her way into sommelier competitions when she has never served before. She gains access to a scientific conference on smell (and the impact on the brain) in Switzerland. She talks researchers in South Korea into taking an MRI of her brain while sending her sips of wine via a tube to see what areas of her brain light up. The woman who INVENTED the WINE AROMA WHEEL invites Bosker to her KITCHEN to teach her how to find “asparagus” when tasting. Like many of us, tech reporter Bianca Bosker saw wine as a way to unwind at the end of a long day, or a nice thing to have with dinner and that was about it. Until she stumbled on an alternate universe where taste reigned supreme, a world in which people could, after a single sip of wine, identify the grape it was made from, in what year, and where it was produced down to the exact location, within acres. Where she tasted wine, these people detected not only complex flavor profiles, but entire histories and geographies. Astounded by their fanatical dedication and seemingly superhuman sensory powers, Bosker abandoned her screen-centric life and set out to discover what drove their obsession, and whether she, too, could become a cork dork.The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness and the Making of a Great Chef, by Marco Pierre White and James Steen Bosker breaks open the world of your favorite beverage...[bringing]readers on her year-plus adventure of learning about everything from production to consumption." –Bustle, "The 20 Best Nonfiction Books Coming In March 2017"
On how to open a bottle of sparkling wine: “The cork should be twisted and released into a napkin with a pfft sound no louder than—and these are the technical terms I was given—a ‘nun’s fart,’ or ‘Queen Elizabeth passing gas.’”
© BIANCA BOSKER (2016)
My husband and I are hardly wine connoisseurs. We drink wine, enjoy wine, and attend wine tastings when we get the chance, but liking and enjoying wine is far different than knowing wine. Several years ago we watched the documentary, Somm, which documented the rigors of becoming a master sommelier (a "cork dork"). Which, by the way, is tough, very tough. So I was thrilled to receive a copy of this book and get an inside look into the world of wine.
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