Category: Guest Column

Finding fun quotations about wine is easy, like looking for hay in a haystack. Wineries have them on their notice boards. Cocktail napkins with wine witticisms abound. On a more serious note, many classic authors have also written about wine. Let’s start with William Shakespeare (“sack” corresponds to modern sherry):

• “Wine cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires the young and makes weariness forget his toil.” (Merry Wives of Windsor)
• “If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.” (Henry IV)
• “Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.” (Henry VIII)
• “A man cannot make him laugh – but that’s no marvel; he drinks no wine.” (Henry IV)
• “What three things does drink especially provoke? Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.” (Macbeth)

Shakespeare was not alone in generating some great quotations about wine, and featuring characters who loved their wine. Here are quotes from some other great authors; it’s no accident that several are French, since the French may have had the most practice at drinking wine:

• “Ah, bouteille, ma vie, pourquoi  vous videz-vous?” (Moliere) Translated “Oh bottle, my life, why do you empty yourself?”
• “One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters .. But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose. But get drunk.” (Charles Baudelaire)
• “In vino, veritas.” (Pliny the Elder). Translation: “In wine, there is truth.”
• “La vie est trop court pour boire du mauvais vin.” (French proverb). Translation “Life is too short to drink bad wine.” The Wine Guys say “Amen”
• “Wine is bottled poetry.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• “Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.” (Joan Collins)

Other famous people also needed to make their opinions on wine heard:

While Burgundy, France is the home of the Pinot Noir grape and the producer of truly world-class Pinot Noirs, the U.S. is a not too distant second in terms of production. After the 2004 movie “Sideways” was released (which celebrated Pinot Noir wines), interest in Pinot Noir wine took off in the United States. Vineyard acreage planted with Pinot Noir increased dramatically and new producers developed vineyards in California and the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Today, Pinot Noir sales are second only to Cabernet Sauvignon.

Pinot Noir is a difficult grape to grow successfully. It’s thin-skinned and very sensitive to temperature, soil and disease. The vines produce tightly packed grape clusters which make it susceptible to various forms of disease and rot. It’s a cool climate grape and doesn’t do well in warmer climates. In California, Sonoma County and the Russian River Valley are two of the top producing areas as is the Willamette Valley in Oregon where nights are cooler and valley fog often develops.

An experienced and knowledgeable wine maker is critical for making good Pinot Noir wine. While that may apply to making any good wine, Pinot Noir ripens unevenly and generally requires hand-harvesting and gentle handling. Vinification processes can vary but if poorly managed, the wine can have a bitter edge or simply be flat.

We’ll be hearing a lot about Thomas Jefferson this year, it being the country’s 250^th birthday and all, and Jefferson of course had a rather large role in all of that.

But at least as important was Jefferson’s role in being sure the new country he helped to create had an appreciation for good wine.  It is, he said, “a necessity of life for me.”  That is right up there with “all men are created equal.”

Jefferson’s appreciation for wine blossomed during his tenure as Minister of France in the early 1780s.  An avid note taker, Jefferson kept a record of his visits to a host of wine regions in Europe, developing a special fondness for Burgundy and Bordeaux.  (One of his favorite wineries was Chateau Haut-Brion, proving he was no slouch.) 

On his return to the U.S., Jefferson began applying what he learned in France to the grounds surrounding his home, Monticello.  He had studied soil, climate and different grape varietals, noting how different regions produced distinct styles of wines.  He eventually gave a parcel of his land to an Italian winemaker and thus fathered one of the first commercial wineries in the U.S. 

I’m going to build on last month’s WineLines, “Wine in America” and give my take on the question “What’s America’s special wine grape?”

IMHO, it’s Zinfandel, specifically red Zinfandel.

Many grapes are grown and vinified the whole world over: Cab Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, to mention just a few, but there’s one that’s (almost) unique to America. I’m not going to include our native grapes in this, such as Muscadine, Scuppernong, Concord and Niagara – the less said about them, the better.

It’s known that Zin’s not native to North America. Like so many of our wine grapes, it was imported from Europe, in this case from Croatia via Italy and Austria. In Croatia, it’s known as Tribidrag or Kastelanski, and has some close relatives. In Italy it’s known as Primitivo. It appears to have been grown in the U.S. Northeast 200 years ago, and found its way to California, where it found a home, around the time of the Gold Rush.

Consider this a very brief history of wine in the United States, highlighting some fun and perhaps surprising facts. Maybe try a few of these at your next party trivia game or test that friend who claims to be a wine “expert.”

With apologies to Native American tribes, some of whom did cultivate and make wine fermented from wild grapes and other fruit long before the arrival of Europeans, wine after Europeans arrived has been produced in America since the 1560s. It was then that the first Spanish missionaries and settlers in what is now St. Augustine, Florida, planted Muscadine and Listán Prieto (“Mission”) grape vines brought from Europe. As Spanish exploration continued, the Mission grape and other varietals were planted in 1629 at the San Gabriel Mission, near what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the first vineyards in California planted by Franciscan missionaries in 1769 at Mission San Diego de Alcalá.

While Spanish missionaries were clearly early wine growers in America, they were not alone. In 1619, the House of Burgesses, America’s first Colonial legislative assembly, passed “Acte 12,” requiring every male household in Virginia to plant and cultivate at least 10 vines of European vinifera grapes to make wine, in theory to ship back to England. For the most part, the plan failed, and it was not until 1768 that Virginia wine growers successfully shipped wine to England.

On this day, the best present one can hope for
is time together with family and friends.

May your home be filled with joy and laughter,
your heart with love,
and your life with hope.

Wishing you a Christmas filled with
warmth, peace, and quiet joy.

-Your Tidelines team

(We are taking the day off!)