Notable quoteables: Vinous wisdom from the ages

I love learning what other people write about wine almost as much as I love writing about it myself. Herewith, a few snippets from eloquent wine lovers past and present:

• “I like my coffee black, my beer from Germany, wine from Burgundy, the darker, the better. I like my heroes complicated and brooding, James Dean in oiled leather, leaning on a motorcycle. You know the color.” — Barbara Crooker

• “Not only does one drink wine, but one inhales it, one looks at it, one tastes it, one swallows it, and one talks about it.”  — King Edward VII

• “Wine, starry child of earth, smooth as a golden sword, soft as lascivious velvet, wine, spiral-seashelled and full of wonder, amorous, marine; never has one goblet contained you, one song, one man, you are choral, gregarious, at the least, you must be shared.” — Pablo Neruda

• “Wine is a chemical symphony.” — Maynard Amerine

• “The beauty of great wine is revealed not by adding adornment, but by removing it.” — Alexandra Marnie Lapostolle

• “Only the unimaginative can fail to find a reason for drinking Champagne.” — Oscar Wilde

• “In water one sees one’s own face, but in wine one beholds the heart of another.” — French proverb