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“In Wine There Is Truth” : 50 of Our Favorite Wine Quotations

Every wine lover has their go-to wine quotation, that witty quip they use whenever the subject of wine enters a conversation. For centuries, the world’s most wine-obsessed writers and philosophers have pondered their relationship with the fermented fruit of the vine and populated world languages with their witticisms. Today, their words of wisdom have become perfectly articulated expressions of wine as famous as the writers themselves. And while there are a plethora of humorous quotations dedicated to alcohol, naturally, we are only interested in those that specifically speak of wine. 

Following a conversation in the Pommard office of what everyone’s favorite wine quotation is, we decided to collate the very best for your reading delectation. So, from now on, if you’re ever stuck for a wine quotation or a trusty bon mot, bookmark this page and deliver these classic quotes as if you’ve never forgot them.

The question is…. what’s your favorite? Is it missing? If so, let us know below…

1. “When a man drinks wine with dinner, he begins to be better pleased with himself.”
– Plato

3. “For when the wine is in, the wit is out.”
– Thomas Becon

4. “Wine is the thinking person’s health drink.”
– Philip Norrie

5. “Burgundy makes you think of silly things, Bordeaux makes you talk of them, and Champagne makes you do them.”
– Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

6. “Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.”
– William Shakespeare

7. “Too much Chablis can make you whablis.”
– Ogden Nash

9. “Wine is bottled poetry.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson

10. “A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.”
– Louis Pasteur

11. “Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used.”
– William Shakespeare

12. “One not only drinks the wine, one smells it, observes it, tastes it, sips it, and one talks about it.”
– King Edward VII

13. “Just the simple act of tasting a glass of wine is its own event.”
– David Hyde Pierce

15. “Wine is the nurse of old age.”
― Galen

16. “Beer is made by men, wine by god!”
– Martin Luther

17. “Within the bottle’s depths, the wine’s soul sang one night.”
– Charles Baudelaire

18. “Good wine is a necessity of life for me.”
– Thomas Jefferson

20. “In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.”
– Benjamin Franklin

21. “Whenever a man is tired, wine is a great restorer of strength.”
– Homer

22. “The soft extractive note of an aged cork being withdrawn has the true sound of a man opening his heart.”
– William S. Benwell

23. “To take wine into our mouths is to savor a droplet of the river of human history.”
― Clifton Fadiman

24. “Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.”
― Ernest Hemingway

25. “Compromises are for relationships, not wine.”
– Robert Scott Caywood

“The wine cup is the little silver well where truth, if truth there ever be, doth ever dwell.”
– Edward Fitzgerald

27. “Beer is made by men, wine by God.”
― Martin Luther

28. “Champagne is one of the elegant extras in life.”
– Charles Dickens

29. “Wine… the intellectual part of the meal.”
– Alexandre Dumas

30. “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.”
– W E P French

32. “Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.”
― Paulo Coelho

33. “I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

34. “I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.”
― William Shakespeare

35. “Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.”
― Louis Pasteur

36. “Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.”
― Homer

38. “I like on the table, when we’re speaking, the light of a bottle of intelligent wine.”
― Pablo Neruda

39. “If food is the body of good living, wine is the soul.”
–  Clifton Fadiman

40. “Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.”
― Francis Bacon

42. “If we sip the wine, we find dreams coming upon us out of the imminent night.”
― D.H. Lawrence

43. “Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books.”
― Stephen Fry

44. “A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover.”
― Clifton Fadiman

45. “The juice of the grape is the liquid quintessence of concentrated sunbeams.”
― Thomas Love Peacock

46. “Wine is a living liquid containing no preservatives.”
– Julia Childs

47. “Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues.”
– Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

49. “To happy convents bosomed in vines, where slumber abbots, purple as their wines.”
– Alexander Pope

50. “Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”
― John Keats