‘Most delightful’ words on wine
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are” might be the best-known quotation from the French gastronome Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), but many of his wisest words concerned his favorite beverage. To wit:
• “A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine.”
• “A hard drinker, being at the table, was offered grapes for dessert. ‘Thank you,’ said he, pushing the dish away from him, ‘but I am not in the habit of taking my wine in pills.’ ”
• “Wine, the most delightful of drinks, whether we owe it to Noah, who planted the wine, or to Bacchus, who pressed the juice from the grape, goes back to the childhood of the world.”
• “Burgundy makes you think of silly things, Bordeaux makes you talk of them, and Champagne makes you do them.”
• “The discovery of a new vineyard does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a new star.”