quotations about wine
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
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"How not to let a shelf full of Chablis, Claret and Beaujolais intimidate you", Cincinnati Magazine, February 1977
Wine is one of the agreeable and essential ingredients of life.
JULIA CHILD
attributed, Wine: Grape Goddess
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
You may happen on a good bottle, but chances are you will not. For that, you need a store run by passionate devotees who do much of the advance work for you. A good wine shop or online merchant with a point of view, like a great butcher or baker, will have performed a rigorous selection process before making its wares available to consumers. Knowing that you are in a good wine shop can sharpen your decision-making down to issues of taste and occasion rather than quality.
ERIC ASIMOV
"Want to Pick Better Bottles? Repeat After Me: Wine Is Food", New York Times, March 6, 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 great investment ... if you don't drink it.
VICKI DENIG
"Wine is a great investment ... if you don't drink it", Vine Pair, March 6, 2017
Wine is a passport to the world.
THOM ELKJER
Adventures in Wine
Wine is better for brains than math, scientist claims.
JERRIANN SULLIVAN
"Rejoice! Science Says Drinking Wine Is Good For Your Brain", Scary Mommy, April 11, 2017
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
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
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
Wine is life, death, and love.
THOM ELKJER
Adventures in Wine
I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
Wine molecules don't actually have any flavor, and it's our brains that create the sensation that we perceive as taste. The process is similar to how our brains see color. Wine molecules stimulate thousands of our mouth's taste and odor receptors, which create both a sensory and emotional reaction in our brain. All these signals spark different cognitive areas -- including memory, pattern recognition and pleasure -- which work together to deliver the wine's "taste."
LAUREN TOUSIGNANT
"Drinking wine is like burpees for your brain", New York Post, April 5, 2017
'Tis the wine that leads me on,
the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing
at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool -- it drives the
man to dancing ... it even
tempts him to blurt out stories
better never told.
HOMER
The Odyssey
Don't mix wine and women.
CESARE PAVESE
The Beach
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
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
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