quotations about wine
The memory of some bottles can stay with your for life. While the wine doesn't have to be old and rare, a great old bottle can be like a time capsule, capturing in its flavors and aromas the time and place of its creation.
MIREILLE GUILIANO
French Women for All Seasons
Wine is life, death, and love.
THOM ELKJER
Adventures in Wine
Now let you and me buy wine today!
Why say we have not the price?
My horse spotted with five flowers,
My fur-coat worth a thousand pieces of gold,
These I will take out, and call my boy
To barter them for sweet wine.
And with you twain, let me forget
The sorrow of ten thousand ages!
LI BAI
"An Exhortation"
Pure wine is fit for a royal table, while impure at any price proclaims an uneducated palate.
JAMES LEMOINE DENMAN
Pure Wine and How to Know It
We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy. The miracle in question was only performed to hasten the operation, under circumstances of present necessity, which required it.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
letter to Abbé Morellet, 1779
A river town. The autumn rain has stopped.
Our wine is gone. So, farewell!
LI BAI
"At a River Town"
Wine is a highly personal experience. You may like something your neighbor hates, just as with food. Your bitter is the next person's sweet.
CATHERINE FALLIS
Wine: Grape Goddess Guides to Good Living
I can't make wine simple. But I can make it fun and beautiful, instead of esoteric and intimidating. The minute you realize it's OK to stumble along like the rest of us, asking questions and paying attention to your own reactions, then you'll begin what I hope will be a lifelong love affair with wine.
JENNIFER ROSEN
introduction, The Cork Jester's Guide to Wine
I love to discover a $10 bottle of wine, a $15 bottle of wine, rather than the usual $70, $80 bottle of wine. Everybody likes to drink wine, so it's very important to have values.
PIERO SELVAGGIO
"The Once and Future Piero Selvaggio", Wine Spectator, April 30, 2017
Do you dare to accuse wine of clouding the reason? Quote me more marvelous effects than those of wine. Look! when a man drinks, he is rich, everything he touches succeeds, he gains lawsuits, is happy and helps his friends. Come, bring hither quick a flagon of wine, that I may soak my brain and get an ingenious idea.
ARISTOPHANES
The Knights
Wine is a mixture of all things: a complex food; a social, religious, festive, and symbolic beverage; a materia medica; a lot of fun; a deity in liquid form "that will make the blind to see and the lame walk"; a fiery water; a delightful poison; a work of art; a work of nature; in sum, a living thing. A connoisseur will tell you it has charm, character, finesse, or breed, and he will call it honest, mature, disloyal, fat, or flabby. In fact, a great bottle of wine is thought to be so alive and individual that a true wine lover will consider it to be, in sincere humility, a better person than he is.
BOB MCKAY
"How not to let a shelf full of Chablis, Claret and Beaujolais intimidate you", Cincinnati Magazine, February 1977
Good wine is expensive.
ERIC TUCKER
The Artful Vegan
When full of wine we ask for water.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
So wines at the time of the Bible were big, round, juicy, austere wines, red or amber in color. That austerity was often cut with water. It was basically required in the ancient world to dilute your wine with a little bit of water to round it out, and you were seen as a barbarian if you didn't do so.
KEITH BEAVERS
"What wine would Jesus drink?", Vinepair, April 11, 2017
Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.
M. F. K. FISHER
introduction, Vin et Fromage
I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. FIELDS
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul
In Europe then we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also as a great giver of happiness and well-being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
A Moveable Feast
Wine lovers all speak of their First Time, a quasi-spiritual moment of awakening to wine's wonderment. After that, it's a life sentence. I've seen it happen to even the most confirmed beer sluggers.
JENNIFER ROSEN
introduction, The Cork Jester's Guide to Wine
Many people seek an easy formula for choosing better wines. I'm often asked if I can suggest a book, or a class, or a particular wine magazine. But trying to master the vast array of wine producers from almost all corners of the earth is a long, though fascinating, slog. I'm still trudging along that endless route myself. Fortunately, there is a simpler solution that does not require poring over tomes that daunt you with complexity, or pamphlets that mislead you by promising easy expertise. All you have to do is remember three words: Wine is food.
ERIC ASIMOV
"Want to Pick Better Bottles? Repeat After Me: Wine Is Food", New York Times, March 6, 2017
All too often the wine is poured to nearly fill the glass ... this should be avoided, as it limits the headspace in the glass and consequently the bouquet, as well as eliminates swirling to increase the bouquet.
GORDON SHEPHERD
Neuroenology: How the Brain Creates the Taste of Wine