Quotes About Wine

Cannes is a little bit like French wine. There are certain years that people prefer over others.

I like sugar, be it candy, this season's pumpkin chocolate chip bars, or wine. Sugar is bad for me. It just sits on my tummy, causing my middle child Esme to ask if we are having a fourth baby. Rude!

The advantage we have as Americans is that we can be fair; we tend to be more open-minded about different styles of wine.

Wine writers have been around for almost as long as there has been wine, but in the past, generally speaking, most wine writing was uncritical and emphasized wine as a romantic, historic beverage. Criticism and comparative tastings were eschewed for fear of offending the trade, which most writers depended upon for survival.

Wine lovers have known for centuries that decanting wine before serving it often improves its flavor. Whatever the dominant process, the traditional decanter is a rather pathetic tool to accomplish it. A few years ago, I found I could get much better results by using an ordinary kitchen blender.

I'm actually surprised how technical a lot of commercial wine production is. Things are done very much from an industrial chemistry point of view at certain price points, but that's not the impression you get with wine.

Of course, with agriculture came the first big civilizations, the first cities built of mud and brick, the first empires. And it was the administers of these empires who began hiring people to keep track of the wheat and sheep and wine that was owed and the taxes that was owed on them by making marks; marks on clay in that time.

I hate fussing about in the kitchen when I have people over to supper, so I make a rich beef stew cooked in wine with carrots, sundried tomato paste and chopped chorizo sausage.

I do love my wine. I'd opt to drink my calories rather than eat them every time, so I cut out the breads, potatoes, pastas, cheeses and desserts in an effort to get my healthy angel and unhealthy demon to compromise.

I love the Sonoma wine community. It's like Pixar - nothing competitive, only supportive. They're always rooting for you.

I think of myself as a fairly logical, scientific and somewhat reserved person. Maura Isles, the Boston medical examiner who appears in five of my books, is me. Almost everything I use in describing her, from her taste in wine to her biographical data, is taken from my own family. Except I don't have a serial killer as a mother!

I prioritize in life. I like to work, I do TV shows, I do a lot of Iron Man training. I enjoy kicking back on a good night and drinking wine until I go to bed, and having fun with my friends. You just have to make time for it and keep it balanced.

When the book is over, I think of innovative marketing ways to reach to a larger audience. I think wine and cheese book launch parties are a waste.

Although finding fruit flies in your wine or beer can be a bit annoying, I hope people will pause to admire the tenacity of these clever little creatures. They are really just hungry animals looking for something to eat, and have no intention of ruining your happy hour.

Christopher Plummer once told me that he never orders a wine without first confirming that the restaurant has a second bottle in case he loves it.

Sometimes, going to see one opera is hard because you don't know the genre. Good opera is like good wine. There are so many varieties, and it helps to inform you about what you like when you see a lot.

Once a year, I take my whole wine team down to see the Giants, and we meet the players. I've never seen anyone pitch like Lincecum that can throw the ball and get through the front leg. He has that stiff front leg.

When I started in 1978, the greatest wine in Spain, Vega Sicilia, wasn't even imported to the United States. The alleged greatest Australian wine, Penfolds Grange, wasn't imported to the United States. There were no by-the-glass programs. Sommeliers were intimidating.

I like white wine when it's young and vigorous. I don't think you should cellar white wine at all, unless it's white Burgundy, and definitely not nonvintage Champagne.

No scoring system is perfect, but a system that provides for flexibility in scores, if applied by the same taster without prejudice, can quantify different levels of wine quality and provide the reader with one professional's judgment.

I can be super reclusive and hermetic, and then I can be in California and host dinner parties and drink wine. It's all me.

Russians really needed a product that would be not as strong as vodka and not as feminine as cheap sparkling wine, so Martini was a good solution.

When I moved to Paris at 16, I held a dinner party in my first apartment and served only red wine, French fries, and mashed potatoes. Unable to cook, I relied on people taking me out.

If Franschhoek has a fault, it is in the lavish refurbishment of wine farms and estates which has reached absurd proportions. Some, like Graf Delaire Estate, are brand new, with jewellery shops, indoor streams, and very high-end lodges for rent at prices not many South Africans can afford.