quotations about wine
One of the most insidious myths in American wine culture is that a wine is good if you like it. Liking a wine has nothing to do with whether it is good. Liking a wine has to do with liking that wine, period. Wine requires two assessments: one subjective, the other objective. In this it is like literature. You may not like reading Shakespeare but agree that Shakespeare was a great writer nonetheless.
KAREN MACNEIL
The Wine Bible
Wine is a social beverage, best appreciated with friends and family. It makes dinner more civilized. It slows us down a little, gives us something special to add to the moment.
HARVEY STEIMAN
Wine Spectator's
Wine is not just an object of pleasure, but an object of knowledge; and the pleasure depends on the knowledge.
ROGER SCRUTON
I Drink Therefore I Am
The love of wine is a good man's failing.
ARISTOPHANES
The Wasps
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
To diners, wine pricing in restaurants seems less like money management and more like cash extraction.
MARK OLDMAN
"Why a $15 bottle of wine can get a 400 per cent markup in a restaurant", Stuff, March 10, 2017
With a special bottle of wine, there is ample opportunity for angst about when to open it. On the one hand, an expert pontificates wine will be best in five years. Do you really have that much patience? What is the harm if you dare open it "early." Likely answer is no harm at all. Wine evolves, and a wine expert may believe it will continue to evolve, eventually reaching a plateau where it will not get better. That is the expert's recommended drink date. That does not mean the wine is not drinking well right now. If an expert was rapturous, he tasted before you bought and long before drinking-best date.
GUS CLEMENS
"Almost all wine you buy today is good to drink today", Lubbock Online, April 11, 2017
Wine is perhaps the closest thing the planet has to an elixir of life.
THOM ELKJER
Adventures in Wine
I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. FIELDS
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul
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
The best way to learn about wine is to uncork a few bottles and start sampling.
HARVEY STEIMAN
Wine Spectator's
Great Bacchus every trouble cures;
Then drink as long as life endures.
For, whilst we drain the rosy bowl,
'Tis all a sunshine of the soul!
ANACREON
Ode XXV, Odes
Wine is most comfortable in the temperature range that people are -- make that Eskimo-type people.
WILLIE GLUCKSTERN
The Wine Avenger
We want to be the person who knows something about wine ... We are drinking for the experience and adventure of discovering something new.
MORGAN HARRIS
"Why millennials can't get enough wine", Fox News, April 6, 2017
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
If Dracula would be happy there, so will your wine.
JENNIFER ROSEN
The Cork Jester's Guide to Wine
The god of wine is a fascinating and frightful image of the cosmic interplay of life and death which began after the first catastrophe. Dionysus shows the world the two faces of a truth which makes one insane.... He brings death and resurrection all at once because he himself has tasted the intensity of life as well as death.
PHOTINA RECH
Wine and Bread
One should always be drunk. That's all that matters.... But with what? With wine, poetry, or virtue as you choose. But get drunk.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Get Drunk"
Choosing a wine is a "mood thing," which can vary depending upon the food with which it's accompanied, or by something as seemingly unexceptional as the weather. On a steamy day ... a pinot grigio; on a wintry day, a cabernet sauvignon.
DENISE MAROTTA LOPES
"Inspired Bites: Restaurant is both popular eatery and wine shop", Cecil Daily, February 6, 2016