Wine Quotes & Sayings To Elevate Your Wine Experience

Wine is the heartbeat of our civilization in all of its conviviality. It inspires and it tickles. It has the power to unite the most divided. It attracts clever sayings and memorable quotes from various people, some more famous than others. Politicians, writers, poets, philosophers, artists, and wine enthusiasts alike, all use wine quotes to share the true meaning of life. Here are some of my favorite wine quotes & wine sayings I’ve gathered along the way, with funny wine images!

Featured Wine Quotes

“When life throws you lemons, have a glass of wine.” — Wine Ponder

Humorous Wine Quotes

“I enjoy a glass of wine each night for its health benefits. The other glasses are for my witty comebacks and flawless dance moves.” — Anonymous
“I find that all children go better with a bottle of wine or two.” — Anonymous
“The secret of enjoying a good bottle of wine… Open the bottle and allow the wine to breathe. If it doesn’t look like it’s breathing, give it mouth-to-mouth.” — Anonymous
“Does anyone know which page of the bible explains how to turn water into wine? Asking for a friend.” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Monday… Nothing a glass of wine can’t fix!” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Coffee keeps me entertained until it’s acceptable to drink wine.” — Anonymous
“A strong man can make you feel sexy, strong, and able to take on the world… Oh sorry, I meant wine… Wine does that.” — Anonymous
“I’m not a ‘glass half full’ type of person, I’m a ‘where did I put my glass?’ kind of person” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Do not let this bottle serve as an inspiration to call your ex in a pathetic attempt to get back together. Some very fine grapes have died in the making of this wine. Show some respect.” — Anonymous
“GRAPE therapy is cheaper than GROUP therapy.” — Anonymous
“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.” — Joan Collins
“A glass of wine is good for your health… The leftover in the bottle is good for your morale.” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Le canon, il faut comprendre aussi que c’est pas seulement du pinard, mais que c’est de l’amitié. (A glass of wine, one must also understand that it’s not just wine, it’s friendship.)” — Louis de Funès (French actor & comedian) / PICTURE IT
“A friend of wine is a friend of mine!” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Pour savoir qu’un verre de vin est de trop, encore faut-il l’avoir bu. (To know when a glass of wine is too much, one must drink it.)” — Olivier de Kersauson de Pennendreff (French sailer)
“Wine does not make you fat, it makes you lean… Against tables and walls.” — Anonymous
“All you need is love… And a bottle of wine!” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Wine fuels the desire and enhances the performance.” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Wine flies when you’re having fun!” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“I don’t like whiny and cheesy people, but I do like wine and cheese people!” — Anonymous
“Seven days without wine makes one weak.” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Reality is just an illusion that occurs due to lack of wine.” — Anonymous
“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.” — W. C. Fields / PICTURE IT
“Once, in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days.” — W.C. Fields, Mu Little Chickadee, 1940
“Less whine — More wine” — Anonymous / SWAG IT OUT!
“I’ve never owned a vineyard, but I’m pretty sure I’ve drank an entire one by now.” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“It doesn’t matter if the glass is half empty or half full. There is clearly room for more wine.” — Anonymous
“Don’t forget to buy a bottle of wine for Mom. Remember you’re the reason she drinks.” — Anonymous
“I drink wine because I don’t like to keep things bottled up.” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“If you have to ask if it’s too early to drink wine, you’re an amateur and we can’t be friends.” — Anonymous
“This may be the wine talking but I love wine!” — Anonymous / SWAG IT OUT!
“Who is this –moderation– people are telling me to drink with?!” — Anonymous
“There comes a time in the day when no matter what the question is, the answer is always wine.” — Anonymous
“Gluten free, dairy free, fat free – I love this Champagne diet!” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it.” — Anonymous
“I tried cooking with wine. Didn’t go so well. After 5 glasses, I forgot why I was even in the kitchen.” — Anonymous
“I’m a wine enthusiast. The more wine I drink, the more enthusiastic I get!” — Anonymous
“Some people say laughter is the best medicine, others think that wine is the way to go. I take both.” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT
“I drink coffee because I need it, and wine because I deserve it.” — Anonymous
“WARNING! The consumption of wine might cause you to think you can sing.” — Anonymous / PICTURE IT

Traditional Wine Quotes

“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath, and a glass of wine.” — Thomas Aquinas, Italian Dominican Priest and Philosopher
“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.” — Rudyard Kipling, short-story writer, poet, and novelist
“I made wine out of raisins so I wouldn’t have to wait for it to age.” — Stephen Wright
“Un vin a dix mille saveurs. — Wine has ten thousand flavors” — Patrice Jouvin
“De ces terres tu trinqueras et dégusteras son vin. — From these lands you will toast and taste its wine.” — Patrice Jouvin
“Great wine isn’t cheap… Cheap wine isn’t great.” — Anonymous
“Le vin, c’est la géographie liquide. – Wine is liquid geography.” — Erik Orsenna (Writer & Member of the French Academy)
“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.” — Thomas Aquinas (Italian priest from the 13th century)
“Good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humors, good humors cause good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven, ergo good wine carrieth a man to heaven.” — James Howell (Welsh writer and historian)
“La vérité est une bulle de Champagne, elle remonte toujours à la surface. — The truth is a bubble of Champagne, it always comes up to the surface.” — Gilles Martin-Chauffier (French journalist) / PICTURE IT
“Qui sait déguster ne boit plus jamais de vin mais goûte des secrets. — He who knows how to savor will no longer drink wine but rather taste secrets.” — Salvador Dali / PICTURE IT
“Le vin rend l’oeil plus clair et l’oreille plus fine. — Wine makes the sight clearer and the sound crisper.” — Charles Baudelaire / PICTURE IT
“Men are like wine, some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.” — Pope John XXIII / PICTURE IT
“Le vin est semblable à l’homme : on ne saura jamais jusqu’à quel point on peut l’estimer et le mépriser, l’aimer et le haïr, ni de combien d’action sublimes ou de forfaits monstrueux il est capable. Ne soyons donc pas plus cruels envers lui qu’envers nous-mêmes, et traitons-le comme notre égal. — Wine is similar to men : we will never know how much we can respect or despise it, love it or hate it, nor how many noble feats or monstrous crimes it is capable of. Let’s not be more cruel towards it than we are of us, and treat it to our equal.” — Charles Baudelaire (French poet and art critic, excerpt from his book “Du Vin Et Du Hachisch”)
“I will drink milk when cows eat grapes.” — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French painter) / PICTURE IT
“One man’s moderation is another man’s bacchanal.” — Katie Kelly Bell (freelance writer & editor)
“Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right.” — Mark Twain / PICTURE IT
“Nothing represents the idea of convivial sharing so clearly as wine.” — Paul Lukacs (excerpt from his book “Inventing Wine”) / PICTURE IT
“Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes, the special occasion is that you’ve got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge.” — Hester Browne (author, freelance writer & journalist) / PICTURE IT
“The sun had already set behind the mountains, and the sky had been drained of color. The trellises of sauvignon blanc flowed down the hill in even rows toward the valley floor. Whatever I was looking for, it wasn’t outside. As far as I could tell, the grapes were minding their own business.” — Frederick Weisel (storyteller & novelist)
“We ought to be opening a bottle of wine!” — Edith Wharton (Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer)
“Wine: A feeling of relaxation when consumed moderately, an aching hangover when otherwise.” — Paul Lukacs (writing about the inebriating power of wine in his book “Inventing Wine”) / PICTURE IT
“The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars.” — Benjamin Franklin, circa 1700s
“Great wine requires a mad man to grow the vine, a wise man to watch over it, a lucid poet to make it, and a lover to drink it.” — Salvador Dali / PICTURE IT
“I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.” — Oliver Goldsmith (Irish novelist, playwright and poet – The Vicar of Wakefield) / PICTURE IT
“It’s a smile. It’s a kiss. It’s a sip of wine. It’s summertime!” — Kenny Chesney / PICTURE IT
“I like on the table, when we’re speaking, the light of a bottle of intelligent wine.” — Pablo Neruda (Chilean poet-diplomat and politician, legally know as Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto)
“Wine is earth’s answer to the sun.” — Margaret Fuller (American journalist, critic, and women’s rights advocate
“Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.” — Ernest Hemingway“My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine.” — Ernest Hemingway
“A regional match is almost always your best match.” — Steve Jones“In victory, you deserve Champagne; in defeat, you need it.” — Napoleon Bonaparte (French emperor)
“Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.” — André Simon“I’m like old wine. They don’t bring me out very often, but I’m well preserved.” — Rose Kennedy on her 100th birthday
“Wine is inspiring and adds greatly to the joy of living.” — Napoleon Bonaparte (French emperor)“A young wine is like a horse, it is extremely vibrant. It needs taming. It has lots of life, the edges need bevelling and we need to reduce the tannins.” — Georg Riedel
“Compromises are for relationships, not wine.” — Sir Robert Scott Caywood
“Good wine is a necessity of life for me.” — Thomas Jefferson, recognizing wine’s inherent health benefits.
“We could, in the United States, make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Nothing makes the future look so rosy as to contemplate it through a glass of Chambertin.” — Napoleon Bonaparte (French emperor)
“Whichever glass you chose, may it be more full than empty.” — Anonymous
“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.” — Joan Collins
“Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance.” — Benjamin Franklin
“God made only water, but man made wine.” — Victor Hugo (French poet & novelist)
“A meal without wine is called breakfast.” — Anonymous
“Love the wine you’re with.” — Anonymous / SWAG IT OUT!
“If you can’t be with the wine you love, love the wine you’re with.” — Anonymous
“Wine is poetry in a bottle.” — Cliffon Fadiman
“Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends!” — Old British toast
“Remember, gentlemen, it’s not just France we are fighting for, it’s Champagne!” — Winston Churchill
“Your lips are like wine and I want to get drunk.” — William Shakespeare / PICTURE IT
“Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.” — William Shakespeare
“Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used.” — William Shakespeare / PICTURE IT
“O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.” — William Shakespeare
“The wine cup is the little silver well, where truth, if truth there be doth dwell.” — William Shakespeare
“You can’t buy happiness but you can buy wine, and that’s kind of the same thing.” — Anonymous
“The discovery of a good wine is increasingly better for mankind than the discovery of a new star.” — Leonardo Da Vinci
“Being a wine enthusiast means you care more about quality than quantity.” — Jean-Claude Carrière (French screenplay writer)
“I’ve entered the world of wine without any professional training, but a definite appetite for good bottles.” — Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (French novelist and performer)
“A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.” — Louis Pasteur
“Le vin est le breuvage le plus sain et le plus hygiénique qui soit.” (Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.) — Louis Pasteur / PICTURE IT
“Be careful to trust a person who does not like wine.” — Karl Marx
“Bonne cuisine et bon vin, c’est le paradis sur terre.” (Good food and good wine, this is heaven on earth.) — Henry IV (Le Bon Roi) King of France from 1589 to 1610
“Wine is more than a beverage, it’s a lifestyle.” — Anonymous
“Wine is sunlight held together by water.” — Galileo Galilei (Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher)
“Pleasure without Champagne is purely artificial.” — Oscar Wilde
“Nurture the land, and return what you take.” — Donald Hess (Founder of The Hess Collection)
“Champagne… Le vin des rois, le roi des vins.” (Champagne… The wine of kings, the king of wines.) — Guy de Maupassant / PICTURE IT
“Nothing is better for the soil than the farmer’s footprints” — Anonymous
“Champagne is the only drink that leaves a woman still beautiful after drinking it.” — Madame de Pompadour (Member of the French court & official chief mistress of Louis XV)
“There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.” — Bette Davis / PICTURE IT
“Good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humors, good humors cause good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven, ergo, good wine carrieth a man to heaven.” — James Howell (English Renaissance Writer)

Wine Quotes From Wineries & Winemakers

“If you don’t have consistency, you can’t win over the hearts of wine lovers.” — Joe Wagner (Winemaker and creator of Belle Glos and Meiomi) — See Meiomi Wine Story
“One not only drinks the wine, one smells it, observes it, tastes it, sips it and – one talks about it.” — Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII (circa 1870) / PICTURE IT
“I only drink champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am, otherwise I never touch it – unless I am thirsty.” — Madame Emily (Lily) Bollinger from Bollinger Champagnes France / PICTURE IT
“There can never be any substitute for your own palate nor any better education than tasting the wine yourself.” — Robert Parker
“There’s something about being able to literally consume a work of art – then to divide all that pleasure of it – because it’s a memory. A great wine for me is a memory, it’s an extraordinary experience.” — Robert Parker
“Wine to me is passion. It’s family and friends. It’s warmth of heart and generosity of spirit. Wine is art. It’s culture. It is the essence of civilization and the art of living.” — Robert Mondavi / PICTURE IT
“My mother served me wine and water from the time I was 3 years old.” — Robert Mondavi
“Whatever you do, pour yourself into it.” — Robert Mondavi
“A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine.” — Robert Mondavi
“Indeed enjoying fine wine at the family table, surrounded by your loved ones and friends, was not just joy – it was one of the highest forms of the art of living.” — Robert Mondavi
“Making good wine is a skill. Fine wine is an art.” — Robert Mondavi
“There are hundreds of decisions that go into making a bottle of wine and it all begins in the vineyard, with the land. One of the most basic and essential ingredients in growing a great grape is starting with healthy soils.” — Chateau Montelena
“Wherever it is in the world, the soil is the basis of all wines.” — Melville Vineyards & Winery (Sta. Rita Hills A.V.A.)
“Wine is bottled poetry.” — Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish novelist and poet)
“Men are like a fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it’s our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you’d like to have dinner with.” — Jill Shalvis (American Writer / Novelist)

Old World Wine Quotes

“People began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.” — Thucydides, Greek Historian
“Waiter, Falernian! That fine old wine, boy pour me another bowl… Go elsewhere, water… Up Bacchus, undiluted.” – Gaius Valerius Catullus, Latin poet of the Roman Republic
“Wine is a libation that moistens and tempers the spirits, and lulls the cares of the mind to rest.” — Socrates, Greek Philosopher
When asked what wine he found most pleasant to drink, Diogenes replied: “That for which other people pay … What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.” — Diogenes Laërtius, Greek philosopher & Biographer / PICTURE IT
“Where there is no wine there is no love.” — Euripides, tragedian of classical Athens / PICTURE IT
“When a man drinks wine at dinner, he begins to be better pleased with himself.” — Plato, philosopher and mathematician (Classical Greece) / PICTURE IT
“Wine fills the heart with courage.” — Plato, philosopher and mathematician (Classical Greece) / PICTURE IT
“In vino veritas est, in aqua sanitas. (In wine there is truth, in water there is health.)” — Pliny the Elder
Wine was once said to have purifying qualities, both for the body and for the soul.
“When a man drinks wine, from him all ill vanishes, from you gods in the same way.” Fragmented uniform text dated back from the Hittite Empire
“Truth comes out in Wine” — Pliny the Elder / PICTURE IT
“Let us celebrate with wine and sweet words.” — Titus Maccius Plautus
“Come, boy, you who serve out the old Falernian,
fill up stronger cups for me,
as the law of Postumia, mistress of the revels, ordains,
Postumia more tipsy than the tipsy grape.
But water, begone, away with you, water,
destruction of wine, and take up abode
with scrupulous folk. This is the pure Thyonian god.” — Gaius Valerius Catullus (Latin poet of the Roman Republic)As far as I know, the above text is the exact translation to the original poem. Another version of this wine quote exists and it reads like this:“Serving-boy, fill for me stronger cups of old Falernian,
since Postumia, the mistress’s, laws demand it,
she who’s juicier than the juicy grape.
But you water, fatal to wine, away with you:
far off, wherever, be off to the strict.
This wine is Bacchus’s own.”
“Do not get drunk often, lest you go mad.” — Old Egyptian proverb used as a warning against excessive wine consumption

Other Wine Quotes

Yes, I have a few wine quotes of my own. All mine! Yep, I came up with those… At least I think so. And it would be nice if they became popular before I’m you know… Dead :( I guess they are just futile sayings right now. But they’ll become wine quotes soon enough. In the meantime, enjoy them and share if you care!

“The divergence of religions, cultures, and opinions takes us apart, while the spiritual powers of wine unite us all.” — Wine Ponder / PICTURE IT
“Good wine makes for good neighbors.” — Wine Ponder / PICTURE IT
“An empty wine bottle is filled with happy memories.” — Wine Ponder
“Wine is only as good as the people with whom it is being shared.” — Wine Ponder
“My favorite wine-pairing experience is wine and friends.” — Wine Ponder
“Wine always tastes better when shared with the people you love.” — Wine Ponder
“Wine is a shared experience.” — Wine Ponder
“A good day starts with a cup of coffee and ends with a glass of wine.” — Wine Ponder
“When life throws you lemons, have a glass of wine.” — Wine Ponder
“The best wines are the ones we share.” — Wine Ponder