Who’s your Papa? Wine wisdom from Hemingway
One can debate whether Ernest Hemingway was a great thinker, but he absolutely was a great drinker (and writer). Some of his thoughts on the topic:
“A person with increasing knowledge and sensory education may derive infinite enjoyment from wine.”
“Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things in the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection. It offers a greater range of enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.”
“In Europe then, we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also as a great giver of happiness and well-being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary.” – From “A Moveable Feast”
“It is a wine. A good wine, not a great one. It is red. Wet. Its power is obvious, obvious and powerful the way men are, men who hunt and get into bar fights. Real men. Except for the smell. The wine smells better than the men.” – From “The Sun Also Rises”
“This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don’t want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.” – Count Mippipopolous in “The Sun Also Rises”
“I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was Château Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company.”
“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”