Title: CORK DORK: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste- Author: Bianca Bosker
- Genre: Memoir; Food & Drink
- Pages: 346
- Published: March 2017 – Penguin Books
- Source: Publisher
Description: Like many of us, amateur drinker and professional 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, identify the grape a bottle was made from, in what year, and where it was produced—within acres. Where she tasted “wine,” these master sommeliers 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.”
Thus begins a year and a half long adventure that takes the reader inside elite tasting groups, exclusive New York City restaurants, a California mass market wine “factory,” and even a neuroscientist’s fMRI machine as Bosker attempts to answer the most nagging question of all: what’s the big deal about wine? Counterintuitive, compulsively readable, and hilarious, Cork Dork illuminates how tasting better can help us live better—and will change the way you drink wine forever. (publisher)
My take I occasionally enjoy a glass or two of wine and have a couple of favorites. I prefer it over other alcoholic beverages. That’s the extent of my relationship with wine – I know when something tastes good to me and that’s it. Reading Cork Dork was a revelation. Sure I’d always heard of sommeliers who know everything one should know about wines but until I read this book I didn’t fully appreciate everything that informs a sommelier. It’s astounding and impressive and I wouldn’t want to be one for all the wine in France. I would liken it a bit to a religious calling.
Bianca Bosker’s extensive research is apparent. She places the reader among the wine makers and the drinkers, the buyers, the purists and the high rollers. Once or twice she got a little too far into the weeds for me but I learned – so that’s a plus. I think most wine-lovers would find this memoir fascinating. It certainly has given me things to think about the next time I buy a bottle of wine. I also have a new respect for sommeliers and the invaluable service they contribute to a diner’s experience. Recommended to fans of foodie/beverage memoirs and, of course, wine.
About the author: Bianca Bosker is an award-winning journalist who has written about food, wine, architecture, and technology for The New Yorker online, The Atlantic, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Food & Wine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and The New Republic. The former executive tech editor of The Huffington Post, she is the author of the critically acclaimed book Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China (University of Hawaii Press, 2013). She lives in New York City.
CORK DORK:
A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers,
Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste
Bianca Bosker ▪ Penguin Original ▪ $17.00
On-sale: March 28, 2017 ▪ ISBN: 9780143128090
ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK
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