This Book Totally Changed The Way I Drink Wine

Pour a glass and get reading.

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Hi, I'm Hannah — and I'm obsessed with wine. So much so that I actually took a six-month wine class to learn all about the stuff. 🍷

Hannah Loewentheil / BuzzFeed

I wrote about the whole thing here.

So when I saw that a book called Cork Dork (a phrase given to describe obsessed oenophiles) had made its way onto the New York Times best-seller list, I was intrigued.

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And I was even more intrigued when I realized that the author wasn't some snobby ancient wine collector — but instead, a badass woman who quit her day job as a tech writer to try to become a sommelier instead.

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Bianca Bosker was living my dream, TBH. And as proven in her book, she was doing it in a way that was super relatable, entertaining, and completely unpretentious. As I read, she quickly became my ultimate role model and new obsession.

Her book covers everything from mass-market budget wines to the intense world of master sommeliers to answering questions we've all asked at some point — like what makes a wine objectively good? And can a person actually train themselves to become a better wine taster?

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The thing I found most interesting about the book was that she says you can, in fact, train yourself to be a better wine taster.

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According to Bosker, you can teach your palate and your brain to differentiate between, say, a sauvignon blanc from Napa Valley, California, and one from Sancerre, France.

But even if you're a total newbie to the wine world, you'll appreciate the way Bosker gives readers a funny and totally unpretentious wine education based on her firsthand experience learning the very same things.

As someone who's trying to learn more about wine, I’ve tried putting some of Bosker’s tips to practice in my own life to become a better wine taster. Here are four that have helped me so far:

1. Smell everything you eat and drink — not just wine.

Hannah Loewentheil/BuzzFeed

Whether I’m passing the local farmers market or grocery shopping at the store, I try to smell as many foods as I can (even if I get some weird looks from other shoppers). I pay attention to the herbs and spices in my pantry. When I pass a bodega with flowers outside, I take a minute to smell the difference between the lavender and roses. Before eating lunch, I try to identify the different scents on my plate. That way, when I smell bell pepper, bacon fat, or ginger in my glass of wine, I'll be able to recognize it and appreciate it.

2. Assign feelings, memories, and colors to different smells.

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The smell of citrus, white peaches, and chalk reminds me of summers by the ocean. So when I stick my nose into a glass of Sancerre wine (known for these notes), that memory comes to mind. I associate a glass of aromatic, fruity riesling with the apricot chicken my mom cooks for the Jewish holidays. Being able to recall a certain experience or emotion from a wine is a whole lot easier than remembering 200+ flavors and tasting notes.

3. Try horizontal tasting (aka drinking the same varietal from different regions).

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Bosker says that she became a better blind taster by choosing one varietal each week and trying that same wine from different parts of the world. So one week I brought home four different bottles of pinot noir from four different continents, then opened one bottle each night and tried to study the differences. The next week I did the same thing for cabernet sauvignon, and so on and so forth. I can now almost taste the subtle differences between a pinot from Burgundy, France; Patagonia; Willamette Valley, Oregon; and Central Otago, New Zealand.

4. Drink wine because you enjoy it.

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At the end of the day, you don’t have to be a sommelier to enjoy wine. You can drink fancy wine out of Riedel glasses or two-buck Chuck out of paper cups. The experience of drinking wine should make you happy. I drink wine because I love the taste, but also because wine is best enjoyed in company. It brings people together, and it helps heighten an experience. More than anything, though, drinking wine is a way to travel and experience the world without leaving my seat. I may not be able to travel to Tuscany on a Tuesday night, but I can taste a wine and imagine myself transported there.

So — tl;dr: Whether you want to become a master sommelier or you just want to think about wine in a new way, check out Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste. (Get it from Amazon for $9.88+.) Then pour yourself a glass of your favorite vino, and get reading.