Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

“You have to take an interest in something in life, I told myself. I wondered what could interest me, now that I was finished with love. I could take a course in wine tasting, maybe, or start collecting model aeroplanes.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Soumission

“Like alcohol and poverty, a heartbreak has the power to make a man do something he wouldn’t normally do and to make a woman do someone she wouldn’t normally do.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“In philosophy, phenomenology is the study of the structures of experience and consciousness. Wine blind tasting is the best phenomenology, phenomenology par excellence, returning us from our heads into the world, and, at the same time, teaching us the methods of the mind.”
― Neel Burton

“It wasn't tuna ventresca that drew diners to this community over others, nor was it heritage beef. It was the final bottle of a 1985 Cannonau, salt-crusted from its time on the Sardinian coast. Each diner had barely a swallow. My employer bid us not to swallow, not yet, but hold the wine at the back of the throat till it stung and warmed to the temperature of blood and spit, till we wrung from it the terroir of fields cracked by quake and shadowed by smog; only then, swallowing, choking, grateful, did we appreciate the fullness of its flavor. His face was ferocious and sublime in this moment, cracked open; I saw it briefly behind the mask. He was a man who knew the gradations of pleasure because he knew, like me, the calculus of its loss.
To me that wine was fig and plum; volcanic soil; wheat fields shading to salt stone; sun; leather, well-baked; and finally, most lingering, strawberry. Psychosomatic, I'm sure, but what flavor isn't? I raised my glass to the memory of my drunk in the British market. I imagined him sat across the table, calmed at last, sane among the sane. He would have tasted in that wine the starch of a laundered sheet, perhaps, or the clean smooth shot of his dignity. My employer decanted these deepest longings, mysterious to each diner until it flooded the palate: a lost child's yeasty scalp, the morning breath of a lover, huckleberries, onion soup, the spice of a redwood forest gone up in smoke. It is easy, all these years later, to dismiss that country's purpose as decadent, gluttonous. Selfish. It was those things. But it was, also, this connoisseurship of loss.”
― C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

“The wines were great, and better by the minute, even as the drinkers softened. Just as wines opened at the table, so the friends' thirst changed. Their tongues were not so keen, but curled, delighted, as the wines deepened. Nick's Latour was a classic Bordeaux, perfumed with black currant and cedar, perfectly balanced, never overpowering, too genteel to call attention to itself, but too splendid to ignore. Raj's Petrus, like Raj himself, more flamboyant, flashier, riper, ravishing the tongue. And then the Californian, which was in some ways richest, and in others most ethereal. George was sure the scent was eucalyptus in this Heitz, the flavor creamy with just a touch of mint, so that he could imagine the groves of silvery trees. The Heitz was smooth and silky, meltingly soft, perhaps best suited to George's tournedos, seared outside, succulent and pink within, juices running, mixing with the young potatoes and tangy green beans crisp enough to snap.”
― Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector

“If you ask a server for a seriously old wine in my neighborhood, they’ll look at you funny and then bring you a half-finished glass from somebody else’s table.”
― Gina Barreca

“For me, the love of fine wine is as different from the love of alcohol as the love of fireworks from the love of dynamite.”
― Neel Burton, The Concise Guide to Wine & Blind Tasting

“Pardon my French, but Sauvignon Blanc is one messy bitch.”
― Shea Sanderson, From Cabernet to Zinfandel: Flavors, Pairings, and Personalities of the World's Most Popular Wines

“The better a wine, the harder it is to describe, and the best are beyond words.”
― Neel Burton, The Concise Guide to Wine and Blind Tasting: Combined Edition

“She shrugged her shoulders, then shifted her attention to the hand-labeled glass jars of honey. "Which one do you want to use?"
"Something mild to go with the cheese."
"The milkweed blossom?"
Isabel nodded. "We're probably the only ones who'll notice."
"The different flavors of honey have always been obvious to me," Jamie said.
"Not to me. I've had to train my palate. Same with wines. But I'm not a natural, but I love the alchemy of pairing flowers. If you were twenty-one and not pregnant, I'd give you a taste of this nice new sauvignon blanc from Angel Creek. It's going to go perfectly with the appetizers." She turned off the heat under the fried marcona almonds and gave the pan a shake.
"One sip," Jamie insisted, nibbling a bit of the goat cheese and honey on a cracker.
"One, young lady." Isabel poured a bit of the chilled white wine in a goblet and held it out to her.
Jamie savored a tiny sip, and smiled blissfully. "You're right. It's delicious."
Isabel took back the goblet. "Look at me, corrupting a minor.”
― Susan Wiggs, The Beekeeper's Ball

“I believe you haven’t truly tasted Malbec until you do so, overlooking the vineyards from which it was born.”
― Vanda Jackson

“The Albert Boxler Riesling, not from Germany, but from Alsace, one of the high-end pours at twenty-six dollars a glass. And I was drinking it. Nicky had served it to me. To thank me. I rolled it through my mouth the way Simone had taught me, pursing my lips and cupping my tongue and almost making an inward whistle. I thought it would be sweet. I thought I tasted honey, or something like peaches. But then it was so dry it felt like someone had pierced me.”
― Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter

“from the California Chardonnay they'd requested to a white from the Rhône Valley. It would have similar viscosity and heft, with all the honeyed stone fruit, but without the dominant vanilla and butter of an over-oaked Chardonnay.”
― Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter

“I enjoy the idea of wine (almost) as much as I enjoy wine. Every glass of wine has a story, and as I savor a glass, I think of that story.”
― Steve Ratliff, Let's Talk About Wine: A simple guide to the things you need to know to be able to talk intelligently about wine without sounding like a snob