Bianca Bosker > Quotes

“After blood, wine is the most complex matrix there is.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“When he poured a taste of Madeira for the Master Sommelier at my table, a splash of wine hit the rim of the glass. The entire table grew silent and not a single person, Morgan included, breathed as we watched the fat, juicy brown droplet roll, as if in slow motion, over the outside rim, along the glass’s side, and down the stem to the foot of the glass. It was like a turd smeared on a wedding gown.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“As Dana and Morgan saw it, not everyone was ready to receive the epiphany that certain fermented grapes had to offer. And being able to afford these wines was not the same as deserving them.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“Drink for thirst, but taste with purpose.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“I’d noticed from eating out with sommeliers that, no matter how encyclopedic their knowledge, they usually put themselves entirely in the hands of the restaurant’s somm, if there is one. Unless they see a bottle they’ve been dying to try, they’ll give just two pieces of information: (1) what they want to spend, and (2) what style of wine they want to drink.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“I gave them the same advice that had worked for me: Start by stocking your sense memory. Smell everything and attach words to it. Raid your fridge, pantry, medicine cabinet, and spice rack, then quiz yourself on pepper, cardamom, honey, ketchup, pickles, and lavender hand cream. Repeat. Again. Keep going. Sniff flowers and lick rocks. Be like Ann, and introduce odors as you notice them, as you would people entering a room. Also be like Morgan, and look for patterns as you taste, so you can, as he does, “organize small differentiating units into systems.” Master the basics of structure—gauge acid by how you drool, alcohol by its heat, tannin by its dryness, finish by its length, sweetness by its thick softness, body by its weight—and apply it to the wines you try. Actually, apply it to everything you try. Be systematic: Order only Chardonnay for a week and get a feel for its personality, then do the same with Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc, and Cabernet Franc (the Wine Folly website offers handy CliffsNotes on each one’s flavor profile). Take a moment as you drink to reflect on whether you like it, then think about why. Like Paul Grieco, try to taste the wine for what it is, not what you imagine it should be. Like the Paulée-goers, splurge occasionally. Mix up the everyday bottles with something that’s supposed to be better, and see if you agree. Like Annie, break the rules, do what feels right, and don’t be afraid to experiment.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“There is, however, a subtle but important distinction between a wine that’s good to me and a wine that’s good—full stop. While everyone can (and should) decide their favorites for themselves, experts do attempt to grade quality according to certain objective standards”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“There is no fault that can’t be corrected [in natural wine] with one powder or another; no feature that can’t be engineered from a bottle, box, or bag. Wine too tannic? Fine it with Ovo-Pure (powdered egg whites), isinglass (granulate from fish bladders), gelatin (often derived from cow bones and pigskins), or if it’s a white, strip out pesky proteins that cause haziness with Puri-Bent (bentonite clay, the ingredient in kitty litter). Not tannic enough? Replace $1,000 barrels with a bag of oak chips (small wood nuggets toasted for flavor), “tank planks” (long oak staves), oak dust (what it sounds like), or a few drops of liquid oak tannin (pick between “mocha” and “vanilla”). Or simulate the texture of barrel-aged wines with powdered tannin, then double what you charge. (““Typically, the $8 to $12 bottle can be brought up to $15 to $20 per bottle because it gives you more of a barrel quality. . . . You’re dressing it up,” a sales rep explained.)

Wine too thin? Build fullness in the mouth with gum arabic (an ingredient also found in frosting and watercolor paint). Too frothy? Add a few drops of antifoaming agent (food-grade silicone oil). Cut acidity with potassium carbonate (a white salt) or calcium carbonate (chalk). Crank it up again with a bag of tartaric acid (aka cream of tartar). Increase alcohol by mixing the pressed grape must with sugary grape concentrate, or just add sugar. Decrease alcohol with ConeTech’s spinning cone, or Vinovation’s reverse-osmosis machine, or water. Fake an aged Bordeaux with Lesaffre’s yeast and yeast derivative. Boost “fresh butter” and “honey” aromas by ordering the CY3079 designer yeast from a catalog, or go for “cherry-cola” with the Rhône 2226. Or just ask the “Yeast Whisperer,” a man with thick sideburns at the Lallemand stand, for the best yeast to meet your “stylistic goals.” (For a Sauvignon Blanc with citrus aromas, use the Uvaferm SVG. For pear and melon, do Lalvin Ba11. For passion fruit, add Vitilevure Elixir.) Kill off microbes with Velcorin (just be careful, because it’s toxic). And preserve the whole thing with sulfur dioxide.

When it’s all over, if you still don’t like the wine, just add a few drops of Mega Purple—thick grape-juice concentrate that’s been called a “magical potion.” It can plump up a wine, make it sweeter on the finish, add richer color, cover up greenness, mask the horsey stink of Brett, and make fruit flavors pop. No one will admit to using it, but it ends up in an estimated 25 million bottles of red each year. “Virtually everyone is using it,” the president of a Monterey County winery confided to Wines and Vines magazine. “In just about every wine up to $20 a bottle anyway, but maybe not as much over that.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“Art is a choice. It is a fight against complacency. It is a decision to forge a life that’s richer, more uncomfortable, more mind-blowing, more uncertain. And ultimately, more beautiful.”
― Bianca Bosker, Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See

“Wine,” declared the nineteenth-century novelist Alexandre Dumas, “is the intellectual part of the meal.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“Wine is freedom,”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“(A quick warning: oenophiles use an unnecessary number of French words in daily life. Towel is serviette, bubbles are pétillance, and table settings are mis-en-place. Pretentious? Oui.)”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“Wine is the intellectual part of the meal (Alexandre Dumas)”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“My personal experience indicates that supertasters are disproportionately predisposed to lourd their status over others.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“Wine is freedom,” Victoria had told me. “It gives you freedom to meet people you wouldn’t otherwise meet, go places you wouldn’t go, and try things you otherwise wouldn’t get to try.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“They might poke fun at them, like the batty socialite who brought her wine sloshing in a Ziploc bag to Jean-Georges, thinking no cork meant no corkage fee.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“Marea’s reservationists are required to Google every one of its guests,”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“(For knock-off Bordeaux, fill a bottle with equal parts Devonshire cider and port, age for one month, and serve—“the best judge will not be able to distinguish them from good Bordeaux.”)”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“1001 Whiskies, Jura Wine, North American Pinot Noir, The Wines of Burgundy, Wine Atlas of Germany, To Burgundy and Back Again, A Short History of Wine, Cellarmasters in the Kitchen, Reading Between the Vines, and, the lone exception”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“Art Lovers pitied me: They said I lacked "Visual literacy", which they swore was downright dangerous in a world so saturated with pictures.”
― Bianca Bosker, Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See

“Like, God, America, SHUT UP. I don’t need to provide the answer to this question, because why don’t we have some goddamn mystery left in the world? . . . It’s in your heart. It’s spiritual. It has nothing to do with quantification. And to me, at least, in a world where everything is quantified and everything is measured, thank God there’s still something on this planet that belongs completely to the process and the mysterious and the aesthetic.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“The study on California wine competitions did find that there was one situation where the judges were extremely consistent: rating wines they did not like. Quality is elusive. But bad wine can’t hide.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“BSD” wines, code for big-swinging-dick bottles”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“We are also capable of smelling warning signals in our environment, just like animals. The sense of smell, our body’s alarm system, is constantly on the alert for threats, and subtly nudges our behavior accordingly. The scent of women’s tears, for example, has been shown to decrease sexual arousal among men. Johan has found that we can differentiate healthy strangers from sick individuals based solely on their body odors, a cue that may have evolved to help us avoid infection. And of course we can smell some dangers, like smoke or gas, before we see them.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“He believed that wine could reshape someone’s life. That’s why he preferred buying bottles to splurging on sweaters. Sweaters were things. Bottles of wine, said Morgan, “are ways that my humanity will be changed.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“never drink the same wine twice.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“rats, mice, and snakes scooped up from the vineyard can accidentally get mixed in.)”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“There’s this whole issue where if people spend $350 for a bottle of wine, they don’t want to admit they don’t like it.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

“But far from a disorder, specific anosmia may be “the rule rather than the exception of olfactory processing,” writes Ilona and her coauthors. And it appears to be something we can change.”
― Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste