“In Vino Veritas” - Great Wine Quotes

In Vino Veritas (In wine is truth). This is, without a doubt, the world’s best known wine quote.
It is generally attributed to Pliny The Elder, a Roman. While he may have coined the Latin version, the same expression in Greek has been attributed from an earlier time to the philosopher Plato as well as the Greek poet Alcaeus. Regardless of origin, The Wine Guy concedes it should on anyone’s top ten wine quotes list including mine.

That, of course, is my topic for this week…The Wine Guy’s Top Ten Favorite Wine Quotes. The remainder of my list follows:

The first two reflect the importance of wine as part of life:

“ I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
-Line spoken by actor W.C. Fields

“…. behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes, to be changed into wine: a constant proof God loves us and loves to see us happy.”
-American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin

A couple of renowned authors offered their simple, yet descriptive, definition of wine and both made my list:

“Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.”
-American author Ernest Hemmingway

“Wine is bottled poetry.”
-Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson

Speaking of poetry, among the thousands of poems written about wine, here are two that made my list:

“The Spirit of Wine
Sang in my glass, and I listened
With love to his odorous music,
His flushed and magnificent song.”
-British poet William Ernest Henly

“Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you and sigh.”
-Irish poet William Butler Yeats

The Wine Guy is a firm believer that wine greatly contributes to the enjoyment of food, thus the inclusion of the following quote from a famous French cooking author:

“Wine makes a symphony of a good meal.”
-Fernande Garvin

For a wine aficionado, the next quote appropriately equates wine with the romance of life:

“We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.”
-Uruguayan journalist & author Eduardo Galeano

Last, but certainly not least on the list, is a quote that succinctly summarizes the importance of wine for all of us dedicated vinophiles:

“Wine, Madam, is God’s next best gift to man.”
-American author & essayist Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce was a rather eclectic figure who disappeared from the American scene in 1913 when he traveled to Mexico, ostensibly to join Pancho Villa’s revolution. His quote is a great way to end the list. I hope you enjoyed it.