WINE QUOTES VII

quotations about wine

Wine contains all four basic tastes. The sweet taste is provided by the alchohol and, where present, its sugars; sour taste comes from the free organic acids; the salt taste from the salts; the bitter taste from the wine's phenolic components, generally called tannins. In tasting wine, these four tastes are not perceived at the same time, they become apparent one after the other.

EMILE PEYNAUD

Knowing and Making Wine

Tags: Emile Peynaud


Wine is bottled poetry.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The Silverado Squatters

Tags: Robert Louis Stevenson


Wine is life, death, and love.

THOM ELKJER

Adventures in Wine

Tags: Thom Elkjer


A river town. The autumn rain has stopped.
Our wine is gone. So, farewell!

LI BAI

"At a River Town"

Tags: Li Bai


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


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


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


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

Tags: Catherine Fallis


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

Tags: Aristophanes


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


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

Tags: Edward Counsel


I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.

W. C. FIELDS

attributed, Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul

Tags: W. C. Fields


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

Tags: Ernest Hemingway


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


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


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"

Tags: Charles Baudelaire


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

Tags: M. F. K. Fisher