"Wine is the most civilized thing in the world."

— Ernest Hemingway.

"Drinking good wine with good food in good company is one of life's most civilized pleasures."

— Michael Broadbent

"Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance."

— Benjamin Franklin

"Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age."

— Pope John XXIII

"Wine is life."

— Petronius, Roman writer

"No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage."

— Thomas Jefferson

"I love everything that’s old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine."

— Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer

"Wine … offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than possibly any other purely sensory thing which may be purchased."

— Ernest Hemingway

"[Making wine] is like having children; you love them all, but boy, are they different."

— Bunny Finkelstein ( co-owner of Judd’s Hill Winery)

"Wine brings to light the hidden secrets of the soul, gives being to our hopes, bids the coward flight, drives dull care away, and teaches new means for the accomplishment of our wishes."

— Horace

"A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover."

— Clifton Fadiman

When it comes to wine, I tell people to throw away the vintage charts and invest in a corkscrew. The best way to learn about wine is the drinking.

— Alexis Lichine

"A bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect"

— Robert Louis Stevenson

"It takes a lot of beer to make good wine."

— Lou Preston, Preston Vineyards

“In the order named, these are the hardest to control: Wine, Women, and Song.”

— Franklin P. Adams, The Ancient Three. Dictionary of Quotations, Bergen Evans, 1968.

“Never buy the cheapest wine in any category, as its taste may discourage you from going on. The glass, corks, cartons, and labor are about the same for any wine, as are the ocean freight and taxes for imported wines. Consequently, if you spend a little more, you are likely to get a better wine, because the other costs remain fixed. Cheap wine will always be too expensive.”

— Alex Bespaloff, New Signet Book of Wine, 1986

“The last time that I trusted a dame was in Paris in 1940. She was going out to get a bottle of wine. Two hours later, the Germans marched into France.”

— Sam Diamond in Murder by Death (1976)

"Anyone who tries to make you believe that he knows all about wines is obviously a fake.”

— Leon Adams, The Commonsense Book of Wine

“The two professions are almost the same. Each depends on source material and takes a lot of time to perfect. The big difference is that today’s winemakers still worry about quality.”

— Francis Ford Coppola

“Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.”

— Samuel Johnson, April 28, 1778

"A [restaurant] wine list is praised and given awards for reasons that have little to do with its real purpose, as if it existed only to be admired passively, like a stamp collection. A wine list is good only when it functions well in tandem with a menu.”

—  Gerald Asher

"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once. She drove me to drink; that’s the one thing I’m indebted to her for."

— W. C. Fields in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

"I am certain that the good Lord never intended grapes to be made into grape jelly."

— Attributed to Fiorello La Guardia, former mayor of New York City

"When it comes to wine, I tell people to throw away the vintage charts and invest in a corkscrew. The best way to learn about wine is the drinking."

— Alexis Lichine.

The wines that one remembers best are not necessarily the finest that one has 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, A Contemplation of Wine.