Layne’s Wine Gig Presents
BIANCA BOSKER’S CLASSIC CHARACTERS
By Layne V. Witherell
“There are books and there are important books.” This was a phrase that I kept conjuring up in my undergrad college days at San Francisco State while working as a book buyer in one of San Francisco’s old-school antiquarian used bookstores. We dealt in rare and expensive books as well as the everyday, throw it in your pocket until it’s pulverized variety. It took years to discover the spirit of an important book, but now I know.
An important book turns into an old friend. You converse often and with every reply you learn something new. It captures a place and a time. Also, it changes as both you and the world change.
‘CORK DORK: A Wine-Fueled Adventure among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle hunters and Rogue scientists who taught me how to live for taste’ (Penguin, 2017)
Bianca Bosker made the improbable leap from Tech Editor of the Huffington Post to become a participant and chronicler of the Sommelier Industrial Complex or “the Westminster dog show on booze.” Don’t expect a text about the grapes of Latvia but do expect a well-informed wild ride.
This book and I have had spats over the years. Are blind tastings a scam? Are these sommelier degrees really degrees? Is all that money spent going to get you a real job? It took us some time to reconcile. I read it again today because I like to view this crowd mania and obsession through a historical lens.
Since 2017 lots of changes have happened. The pandemic, inflation, and generational changes. Through all the changes, “Cork Dork” is still loaded with depth and universals.
Bianca Bosker tells the stories of classic characters in the wine world:
MORGAN HARRIS
The obsessive activist sommelier as God, devoting and turning his life upside down to pass the final test of Master Sommelier. He is the ultimate definition of the geriatric millennial with a manifesto in one hand and the perfectly poised wine bottle at your table.
THE BIG BOTTLE COLLECTORS
Prestige, ego, scarcity, lust for trophy wines. Great wines are “an experience that will never repeat itself.”
LEI MIKAWA
The Sensory Scientist you have never heard of. Her job is to match mom’s ordinary taste buds to sell thirty million cases of wine yearly. She works her magic in a tiny lab out of sight in Napa Valley. Will Lei and others become the first wine and cannabis infusers for grocery stores?
ANNIE TRUHLAR
I am a much-traveled veteran of the hard-edged wine biz. The Annies of this world (four kids and a dead-end waitressing job) are near and dear. Bianca meets her in Virginia Beach ready to take the big sommelier test. I know the market and the people. Bianca should have followed Annie for a few days in the land of the Best Western tourists who come to Virginia Beach and don’t tip worth a shit. I have observed Annie on social media. She passed the sommelier exam and is thriving.
Bianca Bosker and I have in our own ways lived, worshipped, and suffered in the wine biz. As part of our separate job descriptions, we have both tasted everything from the dullest to the most magnificent wines in the world, and met a raft of interesting characters along the way.
‘GET THE PICTURE: A Mind-Bending Journey among Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends who Taught Me How to See’ (Viking Press, 2024)
“I have never met a group of humans willing to sacrifice so much to create something of so little obvious practical value.” Going from wine obsessives to art obsessives is a logical and typically risky Bianca move. From fanatic “Cork Dorks” to developing your “eye” as an art pro with loads of howling gossip and characters in “a melting pot of hypocrites and contradictions.” The more that you bring to “Get the Picture,” the better the reward. She makes you think, but there are a lot of chuckles along the way.
ART GALLERY SALES
Her gallery mentor exclaimed, “I don’t care if you know what a shit show this industry is.” Bianca is the self-proclaimed nerdy version of the poet Virgil who runs into the right guide. She lands a lowly intern gig, goes to a Miami art fair, and metamorphoses into a super gallery salesperson. “With art, VIP’s could have their cake, eat it, make a tax deductible donation, and have their friends marvel at how elegantly they chew.”
I learned things as well: no income tax in Florida, estate tax or capital gains, low sales tax, and as a bonus you can live in Maine for 183 days a year as a nonresident tax free. This can be called an eat the rich moment.
WORD
When the subject “Performance Art” appears then you need to toughen up a bit. ALLFIRE is not for the soccer mom with her first tattoo, first dry January and first cannabis edible. This is literally a butt in your face kind of stuff. Performance art isn’t new. Just YouTube up “Vito Paulekis and the freaks” circa L.A. in the 60’s. Some things don’t change- they just get freakier.
CONTEXT IS ALL
“Art so disgustingly cool its abrasive.” What is art? Bianca crawls around the subject like Francis Bacon’s proverbial worm descending the cross. Is it what influential insiders say it is? Curators. Museums. Collectors. Prices rise and fall like the stock market based on a resident “capitalism fluffer.” It amounts to “a handshake between the creator and her audience.”
Following the “icy Gays” and their collecting mania is worth the price of admission.
Collecting both wine and art are what I call the “catnip factor.” Once you have a whiff of that Francis Bacon print or Charles Bukowski signed first edition or a taste of the Edouardo Valentini Trebbiano’ d Abruzzo it’s all over. There is no going back.
MUSEUM GUARD
This is the teaching you how to look at art part of the book. Pay close attention to this chapter.
A PERSONAL THOUGHT
I have been into wine for decades, but I have been a student and admirer of art for as many decades, making it a point to see as many masterpieces as possible, and placing as many of those (sold) red dots as we could afford.
GREATEST SEEN WORK
James Hampton (1909-1964) Self-taught artist. Washington, D.C. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Always astonishment. Always floored. The work: “The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation’s Millennium General Assembly,” gold foil, aluminum, cardboard, light bulbs, jelly jars.
“Great art crashes into your lazy routines.”
-Simon Scharma
“America’s greatest work of visionary art.”
-Robert Hughes
“A black William Blake.”
-To Thompson
OUR OWN FAVORITE
“Egg of Forests” by Paul Teeples (homage to Emily Dickenson). Richmond, Virginia, ca. 1990’s. Found objects. A never-ending delight. Collection of Layne and Judy Witherell.
Final Thoughts
What Bianca Bosker has done is to open our eyes, taste buds, and minds. As you reread both books you will return again and again to both wisdom, great writing, and chuckles. This is what important books are all about.
Both books are available at PRINT: A BOOKSTORE, 273 Congress Street, Portland, Maine.
