George M. Taber, the author of A Toast to Bargain Wines: How Innovators, iconoclasts, and winemaking revolutionaries are changing the way the world drinks
(Scribner, November 2011), spent forty years as a reporter and editor,
primarily on business affairs, before turning his attention to writing
wine books. He was National Economic Correspondent and Business Editor
for Time magazine and then started the weekly newspaper NJBIZ, which covered business news in New Jersey. He sold the company in 2005 to concentrate on wine writing.
In 1976 Taber published an account in Time about the famous Paris
Tasting, when unknown California wines bested the best French wines in a
blind Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon tasting. Nearly 30 years later,
he delved into the story again and wrote Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine
(Scribner, September 2005), which became a best-selling book. It was
selected as the wine book of the year by Decanter, the British wine
magazine. The movie Bottle Shock was loosely based on the story.
Taber has also written To Cork or Not to Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle
(Scribner, October 2007). The book won the Jane Grigson Award from the
International Association of Culinary Professionals, and was a finalist
for best wine book of the year by both the André Simon Award and the
James Beard Award.
In October 2009, Taber published In Search of Bacchus: Wanderings in the Wonderful World of Wine Tourism.
In researching the book he traveled for six months to twelve top wine
regions in the world. A Californian by birth, Taber graduated from
Georgetown University and received a Masters degree from the College of
Europe in Bruges, Belgium. He and his wife now split their year between
two islands, Vero Beach, Florida, and Block Island, Rhode Island.