Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for the Taste (Thorndike Press Large Print Lifestyles)

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Pairings: 2015 Pedernales Texas Albarino & 2014 Silverado Vineyards Petit Verdot. I selected both of these wines because they are unlikely gems in the wine world, just like Bianca Bosker’s Cork Dork. Cork Dork Wine Study and its CMS & WSET flashcards helps you crush wine exams. Spaced repetition, 2500+ wine study flashcards, 40+ wine maps, 30+ interactive wine map quizzes, wine study practice questions and more. Throughout the book, Bosker is not only drinking wine and having a good time, but veers off into exploring many wine-related areas. The science of smell, and of taste. The type of people who are avid wine collectors. The new controversial practice of creating whatever type of wine you want in a factory, including being able to replicate some very expensive wines. The terminology of sommeliers and wine merchants (necrophiliacs, hand sells, trigger wines, and cougar juice, for a few). And what to watch for when dealing with a sommelier. Yet Bosker makes it sound hilariously funny. Her viewpoint is that of an average person, with an average appreciation of wine, observing people who are unbelievably obsessed with wine.

Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker: 9780143128090

But is chronicling an arduous journey to achieve a kind of knowledge the same as demystifying that knowledge for others? In another telling episode, Bosker asks Grieco what he looks for in a bottle. The “tongue map”, which they forced me to learn in elementary school, has been debunked (p. 83, 88). Some of the funniest scenes of Bosker’s book take place during “tasting groups,”where a group of sommelier students get together to taste wine. Cork Dork Wine Study uses proven techniques from cognitive science which adapt to your memory and wine knowledge. Spaced repetition and interval-based active recall helps you maximize wine knowledge retention. Difficult flashcards appear more often, easy flashcards appear less often. You remember more with less effort. Wine study has never been easier! When you inform your friends and relatives that you have left your stable job as a journalist to stay home and taste wines, you will begin to get concerned phone calls. You say: I’m going to hone my senses and find out what the big deal is about wine. They hear: I’m quitting my job to drink all day and improve my chances of ending up homeless.”

Cork Dork is a brilliant feat of screwball participatory journalism and Bianca Bosker is a gonzo nerd prodigy.This hilarious, thoughtful and erudite book may be the ultimate answer to the perennial question of whether or not wine connoisseurship is a scam.” Level 1 wine study flashcards are ideal for CMS Intro and WSET Level 2 and WSET Level 3 exams. Level 2 is ideal for CMS Certified Sommelier and WSET Level 3 and beyond. Change levels any time. 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. Bianca Bosker catapults herself blindly into the wine world, not caring who she takes out en route. She intrudes into the lives of sommeliers, wine makers, restaurateurs and scientists to get her story. She has done an admirable job in distilling - or rather milking - so much of their knowledge. Beaten, Seared, and Sauced: On Becoming a Chef at the Culinary Institute of America, by Jonathan Dixon

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An informative and riveting read that doesn’t take itself too seriously—a much needed dose of reality the wine world could benefit from.” Questioning blind tastings is a radical point of view, certainly a re-examination of some of the wine industry’s inherited wisdoms, despite Asimov’s elevated status. In his column and his book, How to Love Wine: A Memoir and a Manifesto, Asimov devoted his career to making wine more accessible and helping his readers embark on a journey of their own. In this context, Bosker’s journey in Cork Dork, which involved quitting her job and spending a year at 10 a.m. blind tastings with the highest-level sommeliers in the city, seems a lot less accessible as a starting point for novices wishing to learn about wine. I enjoyed this book at the start, and then slowly started to despise it until I was about 60% done with it. At that point there were fantastic sections that dig into what truly defines “good wine” and how variable the definition can be. In her quest to become a sommelier in a very short time, Bianca Bosker takes us behind the curtain of the fine wine world. This peek behind the curtain forms the basis of this very entertaining read about the fine wine world. After high school, she went to Princeton, where she majored in East Asian Studies. There were a lot of 9 a.m. Chinese classes and a lot of flashcards with Chinese characters, foreshadowing the wine journey to be undertaken a decade later.my pinch-me-I'm-dreaming face post- podcasting with wild wine legends @jaymcinerney + paul grieco for @prince_street_ 🔥Listen now to hear my questionable quote about an "orgasm in a bottle." Link in bio! thx @howiekahn (and @michaelhalsband for 📸) A fascinating journey into the obsessive, punishing and occasionally arcane world of new York's sommelier scene. Bianca dives headfirst into the fine dining restaurant environment to discover why sommeliers put themselves through such ridiculously long working and learning hours to sell wines to customers who regard them as little more than glorified servants. On the way, she encounters personalities to whom OCD would be a compliment, discovers how smell & taste are under-rated and undervalued senses, and encounters service rituals that would make the Freemasons look prosaic. Cork Dork Wine Study Pro subscriptions will automatically renew unless canceled within 24-hours before the end of the current period. 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.

THE CORK DORK, Leigh-on Sea - Updated 2023 - Tripadvisor

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. There are so many Wine Economists in the US that there is an American Association of Wine Economists (p. 212), which (not for the first time) made me wonder why there are so many fun and fascinating professions that my high school guidance counselor was seemingly unaware, and therefore failed to recommend that I go into.An essential primer on food’s favourite companion, Bianca Bosker’s incredible book offers an investigation into taste, smell, and restaurant culture any foodie will appreciate.” Ms. Bosker writes about this tribe, their cares, their concerns, their everyday lives, and their all-consuming passion in a sympathetic and deeply probing manner as she, herself, seeks to gain admittance to their ranks. One comes away with a deeper understanding of oenophiles and what motivates them. Always perceptive, curious, and entertaining, the author describes her experiences with precision and a wry sense of humor…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.” Today's wine jargon (e.g., “layers of grapefruit and minerality”) was invented by a group of scientists at the University of California, Davis, in the 1970s, or, as the author put it, wine's “naturalistic, food-based lexicon is about as traditional as disco” (p. 203).

Review: Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker - Decanter Book Review: Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker - Decanter

Bianca Bosker, previously a technology journalist, gave herself a year and a half to learn everything she could about wine in hopes of passing the Court of Master Sommeliers exam. Along the way she worked in a variety of New York City restaurants, joined blind tasting clubs, attended an olfactory conference, and blagged a TopSomm guest judge spot. The challenge was not just about educating her palate, but also absorbing tons of trivia about wine growers and production methods and learning the accepted standards for sommelier service. Bosker was raised in Portland, Oregon, by a professor of Russian language and literature and an E.R. physician. She was very nerdy growing up. “Could you tell?” she asked with a laugh. “I went to a very hippie private school,” she explained. “The biggest act of rebellion that one could do was not recycle. The biggest act of rebellion was being Republican.” Fascinating…Thanks to Bosker’s sensory descriptions, we get to taste and smell alongside her, without dealing with the thousands of hours of study and endless flashcards first.” Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Fortune, Smithsonian, Bustle, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Booklist, and moreBoth an entry-level guide to the ever-growing business of wine and a masterclass in the strange, immensely skilled fanatics who make it their life’s work.” Summary: Light, funny, and engaging mix of personal experience, history and science in the style of Mary Roach.