quotations about wine
A river town. The autumn rain has stopped.
Our wine is gone. So, farewell!
LI BAI
"At a River Town"
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
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
The best way to learn about wine is to uncork a few bottles and start sampling.
HARVEY STEIMAN
Wine Spectator's
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 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 is bottled poetry.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The Silverado Squatters
Good wine is expensive.
ERIC TUCKER
The Artful Vegan
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
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
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
Wine is perhaps the closest thing the planet has to an elixir of life.
THOM ELKJER
Adventures in Wine
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"
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
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
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
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 lot of people want to take their wife out to dinner. They want to order a bottle of Champagne and they want other people to see the bottle. Wine is an adjunct. People can see it the same way they can see your clothes.
PAUL LUKACS
"Price is Right? Drinking Premium Wine is Image Therapy--If We Know It's Pricey", California Magazine, May 28, 2016
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
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