“This is a book about wine, and then everything else: a novel about love, a detective story, and so on,” says orientalist, traveler and writer Dmitry Kosyrev, who over the course of several years created a literary legend under the name “Master Chen” about his new novel. "The Taster" is the first novel by "Russia's most foreign author" set in the present day, and it is Master Chen's first book set in Europe and Russia. There is only one thing in which Kosyrev remains true to himself: a thorough study of everything he writes about. In an ancient castle in Germany, a wine taster is poisoned. His colleague, wine analyst Sergei Rokotov, becomes involved in the investigation of this unthinkable murder. What is this: an ancient curse or an attempt to disrupt important political negotiations? Finding a solution for Rokotov, whose biography already contains many secrets, is not only a matter of honor, but also a matter of a personal nature...