quotations about 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
I get refill number three or four and the wine is making my bones loose and it's giving my hair a red sheen and my breasts are blooming and my eyes feel sultry and wise and the dress is water.
AIMEE BENDER
Willful Creatures
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
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
When full of wine we ask for water.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Wine is a passport to the world.
THOM ELKJER
Adventures in Wine
Wine is a terrible foe, hard to wrestle with.
EURIPIDES
The Cyclops
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
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
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
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
Don't mix wine and women.
CESARE PAVESE
The Beach
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
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
This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The Life of Samuel Johnson
Wine is bottled poetry.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The Silverado Squatters
I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
Wine is life, death, and love.
THOM ELKJER
Adventures in Wine
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