"May all your pain be champagne" - Unknown (Contributed by Lynn Smith, NC)
"In victory, you deserve Champagne, in defeat, you need it." - Napoleon Bonaparte
"Why do we love wine? It is memory, imagination, history, biography, joy, sorrow, philosophy, religion, romance, realism, love and death, and over all these, the love of an artist for their work and the soul's longing for earthly immortality." ~ Unknown
"One shivers with delight
Hot fingers close around a cool rosé
submerged in a shaded ice chest
Refreshing as a mountain stream" ~ Dave Chambers
"I drink Champagne when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty." - Lily Bollinger
"Actually, it only takes one drink to get me loaded. Trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or fourteenth." - George Burns
"The true measure of a civilization is not the census, nor the size of its cities or its crops, but the quality and quantity of wine, women and song that the country turns out!" Attribution: Ralph "Wally the Party Animal" Emerson (1803-1882) Contributed by Tim Owens, who is known for his artistic license
"For FOOD in a world where many walk in hunger,
For FAITH in a world where many walk in fear,
And for FRIENDS in a world where many walk alone,
We give thanks." ~ Six Feet Under, Keith Charles (played by Matthew St Patrick)
"Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else. - Dolly Parton, Country singer and actress. 1946 -
"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common" - John Locke, English Philosopher 1632-1704
"Whiskey!? Never tasted such beastly stuff in my life! In a civilized country they drink wine." - Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977)
"Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity" - Thor-Heyerdahl (1914-2002), Norwegian ethnologist
"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink I feel shame. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the vineyards and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this wine, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this wine and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver. - Attributed to Jack Handy, Submitted by Sita Cilfone, Texas
"God gave us the gift of grapes, to cheer both great and small; little fools will drink too much, and great fools not at all." - Unknown
"One needs but two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop" - Submitted by Dr. Richard Hren, Statistician, Photographer, Social Commentator from Chicago
"Here's to the best years of my life, spent in the arms of another man's wife - My Mother!", Submitted by Russ Taft, CA
"Cabernet Sauvignon is like a Black Labrador - it comes up and licks you. Pinot Noir is more cerebral - it's like a cat." - Attributed to Scott Rich, Moraga Vineyards, Submitted by Grace in Iowa
"Good wine ruins the purse; bad wine ruins the stomach." - Old Spanish Saying
"The wines that one best remembers are not necessarily the finest that one has ever tasted, and the highest quality may fail to delight so much as some far more humble beverage drunk in more favorable surroundings. - H. Warner Allen (The Romance of Wine, 1971) as quoted on the wine list at Commander's Palace in New Orleans.
"You ought to write a book on wines, Count" I said. "Mr. Barnes", answered the Count, "all I want out of wines is to enjoy them." - Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
"Make me one with everything" - Buddhist monk to hot dog vendor
"I like best the wine drunk at the cost of others." - Diogenes the Cynic
"No man can make him laugh - but that's no marvel; he drinks no wine." - William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"
"More than half of small wineries...can not get a wholesaler to carry their wines." - 2003 Wine Institute study, as quoted by George Taber, "The Judgement of Paris"
"Cabernet will rape you and pinot noir seduces you... Cabernet will throw you down and rip your clothes off, and pinot noir subtly convinces you to take them off yourself." - Old French Saying (an old Burgundian one, I'm betting)
"Small and mid-size wineries are driving the changes in California wine. They are the market innovators..." - Vic Motto, Wine Industry Consultant
"I can certainly see that you know your wine. Most of our guests wouldn't know the difference between Bordeaux and Claret." - John Cleese as Basil Fawlty of "Fawlty Towers"
"It is well to remember the four reasons for drinking:
1. The arrival of a friend;
2. One's present or future thirst;
3. The excellence of the wine;
4. Or any other reason." - Old Latin Saying
"In vino veritas (in wine, truth)" - Pliny
"A toast between two good friends:
A) Here's to us.
B) None like us.
A) (Shrugging) Damn few.
B) Aye, and they're dead." - Old Gaelic
"Here's to our health - the slowest rate at which we can die." Anon
"A peek at the bottle is worth 50 years of tasting" - Attributed to Wine Critic and Auctioneer Michael Broadbent
"Tis better for pearls to pass through the lips of swine than good wine to pass through the lips of the indifferent!" ~ Unknown
"How do I define a good wine? It's easier than you think - it is simply one that begins and ends with a smile." ~ Unknown
"Politics is said to be the second oldest profession. I've found that it bears a striking similairty to the first. Here's to the first." ~ Unknown
"Women only go to book clubs for the wine" Attributed to Heather Locklear (1961- )
"Wine makes a perfect gift for a host/hostess, just be sure to remove the price tag and wrap a bow around the bottle and you're done. Oh, and don't expect it to be served, take it as a gift. If they choose to serve it, so be it." ~ Wine etiquette from Dave the Wine Merchant
"Life is too short to drink bad wine - every time you drink an inferior bottle, it's as if you took a fine bottle and smashed it against a wall - you'll never get that bottle back!" Attributed to Len Evans, Australian Wine Authority
"A great wine served in fine glassware is beautiful. But it is also seductive and full of strange promise and perhaps the slightest hint of naughtiness, all waiting to be uncoiled." ~ Dave the Wine Merchant
"I am certain that the good Lord never intended perfectly good grapes to be made into jelly" Fiorella LaGuardia (1882-1947)
"A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover" Clifton Fadiman (1904-1999)
"May your coming anniversaries be outnumbered only by your coming pleasures." ~ Unknown
"May you live forever and mine be the last voice you hear." ~ From "The Gentelman's Guide to Toasting"
"Winemaking is an art, and when I think of it I'm reminded of something Willa Cather once said: 'What is art but an effort to ...capture for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself — life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.'" ~ Attributed to Willa Cather (1873-1947), Contributed by Dave the Wine Merchant
"One of the things I've realized in my decades on this planet is that the world goes on no matter what, and if we are to survive with any amount of grace we all need little oases of tranquility and sanity in our lives. For me, an evening of wine in good company is just such a place." ~ Dave the Wine Merchant
"To me, the lasting impression of any good wine is the thought of its maker. Those whose efforts transformed the fruits of the soil into a finished work of art. Those who pulled from the hectic passage of time an ordered memory. They are immortalized by their wine in my glass." ~ Dave the Wine Merchant
"If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft, and of thy store two loaves alone are left, sell one and with the dole, buy some wine and feed thy soul!" ~ Unknown
"When the bottle runs dry, we learn the worth of wine" Dave the Wine Merchant, with apologies to Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
"How can a few notes of music, some paint on canvas, mere juice of grapes fermented with yeast, have the power to lift the human spirit? No one can explain this; it is the mystery of art." ~ Unknown
"Here's to the corkscrew - a useful key to unlock the storehouse of wit, the treasury of laughter, the front door of fellowship, and the gate of pleasant folly!" ~ Unknown
"People are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age." ~ Pope John XXIII (1881-1963)
"We all have our time machines. Some take us back, and those we call memories. Some take us forward, and those are called dreams." Jeremy Irons, British Actor (1948 - )