quotations about wine
Wine is valued by its price, not its flavour.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
The Belton Estate
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
attributed, The Grape Escapes
In vino veritas, the Roman author Pliny the Elder wrote. In wine is truth. It's an old Latin phrase making fun of people who speak their minds under the influence of alcohol.... Today, in vino veritas has been embraced by wine lovers as a positive, or at least a nuanced, statement. There is always that negative connotation of loose-lipped inebriation, but it also hints of a more positive truth, hidden within ourselves and revealed through wine's mystical quality to elevate our spirit, as the wine we take at communion brings us closer to God.
DAVE MCINTYRE
"In Vino Veritas", WineLine, June 4, 2018
Inevitably I came to associate any wine I met with a specific place and a particular slant of history. I learned to perceive more than could be deduced from an analysis of the physical elements in the glass. For me, an important part of the pleasure of wine is its reflection of the total environment that produced it. If I find in a wine no hint of where it was grown, no mark of the summer when the fruit ripened, and no indication of the usages common among those who made it, I am frustrated and disappointed. Because that is what a good, honest wine should offer.
GERALD ASHER
introduction, A Vineyard in My Glass
Wine fills every corner and crevice of my life. I love drinking, be it for work or pleasure. And after 20 years in the wine industry, vino and I are very old friends. Even when I'm not working I've been known to absent-mindedly swirl and sniff my tea, forgetting it was a mug in my hand and not the stem of a wine glass.
HELEN MCGINN
"How giving up booze for just one month banished our wine critic's wrinkles", The Daily Mail, February 5, 2016
As a commodity, the value of wine is one that draws a lot of skepticism. The higher the price tag a wine has the further divorced its cost seems to be from its production. It's a reductive perspective, but certainly the most expensive wines command prices far removed from the cost of production; instead scarcity, demand, terroir, story, the market economy and -- hopefully -- quality are what drive prices higher.
SAM BEHREND
"Halo Effect Gives Wine Prices Wings", Wine Searcher, May 30, 2016
A wine is ready when you can't bear to wait for it any longer.
KAREN MACNEIL
The Wine Bible
Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.
HOMER
The Odyssey
If we sip the wine, we find dreams coming upon us out of the imminent night.
D. H. LAWRENCE
"Grapes"
I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
Wine is for sharing. What's the fun of swirling, swishing, sloshing and yakking if my friends can't join in?
JENNIFER ROSEN
Waiter, There's a Horse in My Wine
Wine is very life to man if taken in moderation. Does he really live who lacks the wine which was created for his joy?
BEN SIRA
Sirach 31:27
Wine is a little bottle of teleportation. It takes you where it was made. The more you drink wine, the more you start to realize this tastes like Italy, or this tastes like France. How the hell can Italy have a taste?! Wine, that's how.
V
"6 Reasons Wine is the Greatest Beverage Of All Time", V is for Vino
Wine is a terrible foe, hard to wrestle with.
EURIPIDES
The Cyclops
Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever!
ARISTOPHANES
The Knights
Wine is a grocery, not a luxury.
RICHARD BETTS
attributed, "Wine Ink: All Hail Italy -- drinking from the Boot is about pure pleasure", Sierra Sun, May 20, 2016
Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Mardi
Wine is a sensual pleasure. Its real value is when it splashes into the glass. It is not in the category of a Degas painting. The point is not for people to go to their cellar and stroke their bottles.
SERENA SUTCLIFFE
Wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
PROVERBS 20:1
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