[7] When Tairov was eight years old, he went to a local school in his village, then was taken to Yerevan by his aunt for further education when he turned ten.

He also studied at the Geisenheim Grape Breeding Institute under Swiss botanist Hermann Müller-Thurgau, and in the laboratories of German chemist Carl Remigius Fresenius in Wiesbaden, Germany under Eugen Borgman, where Tairov performed his first analyses of wines from the Yerevan and Kakheti regions.

In early 1887, Tairov moved to Montpellier, France, to study at the National School of Agriculture of Montpellier, headed by French viticulturist Gustave Foëx, where he continued to research the wines of his home regions, while also visiting the wine-growing regions of France to learn more about viticulture.

At the time, Phylloxera insects were a significant issue plaguing vineyards in what is now Ukraine, which Tairov worked to combat by convincing the Ministry of Agriculture to introduce techniques he had learned in Western Europe, such as grafting American vines with Phylloxera-resistant rootstock.

[3] In 1892, Tairov founded the Winemaking Bulletin journal in Odesa,[5] the centre of the largest winegrowing region in Ukraine,[10] which he used to further combat grape diseases by allowing subscribers to send him samples which he could then test.

As part of his work with the Ministry of State Property[3] and the Winemaking Bulletin journal from 1899 to 1901, Tairov consulted with law professors from Novorossiysk University and other specialists to develop provisions for a draft bill to combat fraud of food products, including wine, by adulteration.

With a gift of 5 acres (2.0 hectares) of land on the Sukhyi Estuary in 1909 from two landowners, the institute expanded and built an experimental demonstration vineyard and winery on the new site.

He was officially reinstated in 1936, but due to a combination of declining health and the memory of how he had been treated, he became a consultant with the institute instead.