France Wine Quotes

Of course, my Christmas is (so much more) gorgeous and romantic (than Germany's)!! And unlike the rest of the world, we leave wine behind for Santa Claus!" "So Santa-san is delivering gifts to children while driving under the influence . . . ?

If your arteries are good, eat more ice cream. If they are bad, drink more red wine. Proceed thusly.

In a low whisper she was certain only her friend could hear, she said, "I specifically remember we both promised never to drink from any man's goblet of wine. From the looks of you, Frances Catherine, I'm thinking you broke your word.

Limit yourself to wines with names you can’t pronounce that are made from grapes harvested during or before Full House season one.

France is going to endure, and I’ll tell you [ISIS people who attacked Paris ] why. If you’re in a war of culture and lifestyle with France, good fucking luck, because go ahead, bring your bankrupt ideology. They’ll bring Jean-Paul Sartre, Edith Piaf, fine wine, Camus, Camembert, madeleines, macarons, Marcel Proust and the fucking croquembouche. You just brought a philosophy of rigorous self-abnegation to a pastry fight, my friend. You are fucked.

Here is everything I know about France: Madeline and Amelie and Moulin Rouge. The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, although I have no idea what the function of either actually is. Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and a lot of kings named Louis. I'm not sure what they did either, but I think it has something to do with the French Revolution, which has something to do with Bastille Day. The art museum is called the Louvre and it's shaped like a pyramid and the Mona Lisa lives there along with that statue of the women missing her arms. And there are cafes and bistros or whatever they call them on every street corner. And mimes. The food is supposed to be good, and the people drink a lot of wine and smoke a lot of cigarettes. I've heard they don't like Americans, and they don't like white sneakers.

I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there's a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be. All along the Seine, street lamps come on, apartment windows turn golden. "It's seven," Julien says, and I realize that he has been keeping time all along, waiting. He is so American. No sitting idle, forgetting oneself, not for this young man of mine.

In France, Paul explained, good cooking was regarded as a combination of national sport and high art, and wine was always served with lunch and dinner. "The trick is moderation," he said.

The pleasures of my life here are simple – simple, inexpensive and democratic. A warm hill of Marmande tomatoes on a roadside vendor’s stall. A cold beer on a pavement table of the Café de France – Marie Thérèse inside making me a sandwich au camembert. Munching the knob of a fresh baguette as I wander back from Sainte-Sabine. The farinaceous smell of the white dust raised by a breeze from the driveway. A cuckoo sounding the perfectly silent woods beyond the meadow. A huge grey, cerise, pink, orange and washed-out blue of a sunset seen from my rear terrace. The drilling of the cicadas at noon – the soft dialing-tone of the crickets at dusk slowly gathers. A good book, a hammock and a cold, beaded bottle of blanc sec. A rough red wine and steak frites. The cool, dark, shuttered silence of my bedroom – and, as I go to sleep, the prospect that all this will be available to me again, unchanged, tomorrow.

In France, Paul explained, good cooking was regarded as a combination of national sport and high art, and wine was always served with lunch and dinner.

But Wine doesn’t make anything go away! When you bury a big memory it’s always still there, like an itch right down inside your bones where you can’t scratch it, or somebody walking a step behind you that you can’t look at. And . . . and if we didn’t remember things we wish we hadn’t done, wouldn’t we just run off and do them again?

Lexington wasn't a great city, like Philadelphia or New York, but around the Courthouse square, and along Main Street and Broadway, brick buildings reared two and three stories tall, and it was possible to buy almost anything: breeze-soft silks from France that came upriver from New Orleans, fine wines and cigars, pearl necklaces, and canes with ivory handles shaped like parrots or dogs'-heads or (in the case of Mary's older friend Cash Clay) scantily dressed ladies (but Cash was careful not to carry that one in company).

Good wine, fine chocolate and dangerous men!

That's how it can be on life's journey. Some people share your path for a moment, leaving before you've had a chance to even become acquainted.

To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine,” he said.

This is what we must teach our children, to think of others more than they think of themselves, for it is in this way they will find the most noble satisfaction of all.

Monsieur de Villaine at Romanée-Conti, who believed that the winemaker was no more than an intermediary between the soil and the wine and that he should interfere as little as possible.

He said nothing. Juliana peeped at him again. “You’re very anxious to get her in your power again, Vidal. But I don’t quite know why you should be, for you meant to marry her only because you had ruined her, and so were obliged to, didn’t you?” She thought that he was not going to answer, but suddenly he raised his eyes from the contemplation of the dregs of his wine. “Because I am obliged to?” he said. “I mean to marry Mary Challoner because I’m devilish sure I can’t live without her.” Juliana clapped her hands with a crow of delight. “Oh, it is famous!” she exclaimed. “I never dreamed you had fallen in love with my staid Mary! I thought you were chasing her through France just because you so hate to be crossed! But when you flew into a rage with me for saying she was too dull to be afraid of you, of course, I guessed at once! My dearest Dominic, I was never more glad of anything in my life, and it is of all things the most romantic possible! Do, do let us overtake them at once! Only conceive of their astonishment when they see us!

Poor Elinor! Willoughby on one side, Brandon on the other. She is quite entre deux feux.” Prudie had a bit of lipstick on her teeth, or else it was wine. Jocelyn wanted to lean across and wipe it off with a napkin, the way she did when Sahara needed tidying. But she restrained herself; Prudie didn’t belong to her. The fire sculpted Prudie’s face, left the hollows of her cheeks hollow, brightened her deep-set eyes. She wasn’t pretty like Allegra, but she was attractive in an interesting way. She drew your eye. She would probably age well, like Angelica Houston. If only she would stop speaking French. Or go to France, where it would be less noticeable.

Had I realized while on Earth," he said, "that Hell was such a delightful place, I should have put more faith in the teachings of religion. As it was, I actually doubted its existence. A foolish error, cherie. I am pleased to say that you have converted me completely." "I, too," observed Mr. Hamilton, helping himself to wine, "was something of an unbeliever in my time, and while never quite an atheist, like my arch-enemy Jefferson, I was still inclined to look upon Satan as merely a myth. Imagine my satisfaction to find him ruling a monarchy! You know I spent the greater part of my earthly existence fighting Mr. Jefferson and his absurd democratic ideas and now look at the damn country! Run by morons!

No one was who they appeared to be in those days, mademoiselle. The Thierrys seemed to be collaborators, for example, so who would have thought that they were actually working with de Vogüé to undermine the Germans? At Piper-Heidsieck, the owners were hiding guns. At Krug, they were hiding pilots.” He tapped the base of Liv’s glass and added, “This champagne represents history, my dear. Heroism. Bravery. The people behind these wines helped save France.

Without Al, Mary Frances discovered what she did alone. She liked to cook for herself, to assemble a meal of things he would never consider worth a mealtime- shad roe and toast, soft-set eggs, hearts of celery and palm with a quick yellow mayonnaise, a glass of wine, an open book in her lap, and the radio on. The elements that mattered most were the simple ones: butter, salt, a thick plate of white china and a delicate glass, the music faint, the feel of paper in her hand, and the knowledge that there was more, always more book to read, more wine if she liked it, some cold fruit in the refrigerator when she was hungry again, and the hours upon hours to satisfy herself.

Romanée-Conti, who believed that the winemaker was no more than an intermediary between the soil and the wine and that he should interfere as little as possible.

Isak Dinesen went so far as to say, “There are many ways to the recognition of truth, and Burgundy is one of them.

You are a pastel-colored Persian carpet, and loneliness is a Bordeaux wine stain that won’t come out. Loneliness is brought over from France, the pain of the wound from the Middle East.

All Carolina folk are crazy for mayonnaise, mayonnaise is as ambrosia to them, the food of their tarheeled gods. Mayonnaise comforts them, causes the vowels to slide more musically along their slow tongues, appeasing their grease-conditioned taste buds while transporting those buds to a place higher than lard could ever hope to fly. Yellow as summer sunlight, soft as young thighs, smooth as a Baptist preacher's rant, falsely innocent as a magician's handkerchief, mayonnaise will cloak a lettuce leaf, some shreds of cabbage, a few hunks of cold potato in the simplest splendor, restyling their dull character, making them lively and attractive again, granting them the capacity to delight the gullet if not the heart. Fried oysters, leftover roast, peanut butter: rare are the rations that fail to become instantly more scintillating from contact with this inanimate seductress, this goopy glory-monger, this alchemist in a jar. The mystery of mayonnaise-and others besides Dickie Goldwire have surely puzzled over this_is how egg yolks, vegetable oil, vinegar (wine's angry brother), salt, sugar (earth's primal grain-energy), lemon juice, water, and, naturally, a pinch of the ol' calcium disodium EDTA could be combined in such a way as to produce a condiment so versatile, satisfying, and outright majestic that mustard, ketchup, and their ilk must bow down before it (though, a at two bucks a jar, mayonnaise certainly doesn't put on airs)or else slink away in disgrace. Who but the French could have wrought this gastronomic miracle? Mayonnaise is France's gift to the New World's muddled palate, a boon that combines humanity's ancient instinctive craving for the cellular warmth of pure fat with the modern, romantic fondness for complex flavors: mayo (as the lazy call it) may appear mild and prosaic, but behind its creamy veil it fairly seethes with tangy disposition. Cholesterol aside, it projects the luster that we astro-orphans have identified with well-being ever since we fell from the stars.

Peasant families ate pork, beef, or game only a few times a year; fowls and eggs were eaten far more often. Milk, butter, and hard cheeses were too expensive for the average peasant. As for vegetables, the most common were cabbage and watercress. Wild carrots were also popular in some places. Parsnips became widespread by the sixteenth century, and German writings from the mid-1500s indicate that beet roots were a preferred food there. Rutabagas were developed during the Middle Ages by crossing turnips with cabbage, and monastic gardens were known for their asparagus and artichokes. However, as a New World vegetable, the potato was not introduced into Europe until the late 1500s or early 1600s, and for a long time it was thought to be merely a decorative plant. "Most people ate only two meals a day. In most places, water was not the normal beverage. In Italy and France people drank wine, in Germany and England ale or beer.

Wine makes us proud of our past,” said one official. “It gives us courage and hope.” How else to explain why vignerons in Champagne rushed into their vineyards to harvest the 1915 vintage even as artillery shells were falling all around?

I picked up fresh spinach, prosciutto, a variety of cheeses and a wonderful loaf of crusty bread to go with it. I'd also make a green salad and had a special wine from the Burgundy region of France at home that would pair perfectly with the lasagna.

André Simon, the noted French wine authority, described wine as “a good counselor, a true friend, who neither bores nor irritates us: it does not send us to sleep, nor does it keep us awake . . . it is always ready to cheer, to help, but not to bully us.

The waiter uncorked the bottle and poured the first taste. Pierre swirled and then lifted the glass to his nose to inhale the bouquet, the aroma of France, his homeland, He savored the taste of familiar tannins and metals, the acidity a bittersweet reminder of the laughter of children in the fields, of adults cheering long summer evenings, of long-buried emotions, Claire alive in his mouth, Pierre swallowed the wine and approved with a nod the waiter´s choice of bottle, the wine, like him, a survivor in a far-flung place.

We know our land was here before we came and that it will be here long after we are gone. With our wine, we have survived wars, the Revolution and phylloxera. Each harvest renews promises made in the spring. We live with the continuing cycle. This gives us a taste of eternity.

The Vintner's Guide to Precisely Categorizing the Wines of France mentioned all sorts of incredibly nuanced aromas in very expensive wine: slate, bark, cherries, strange herbs, all of which she had to imagine, since cidre and local vin ordinaire were all they had in the village.

It has been a long time since I've been in France. I miss the food like a phantom limb.' ... 'I shall bring you our best dishes,' he promised. 'And the wine to pair with them," she said. He feigned exasperation. 'But of course, he said, 'would I blaspheme?'... She ate, her eyes half closed. All along, she'd known Lotto was with her, across the table, enjoying her food with her. He would've loved this night. Her dress, the food, the wind. The lust welled in her until it was almost unbearable. If she looked up, she knew she would see only an empty chair. She would not look up.

In my meditations, I find that nothing in life counts more than the happiness we can give others, the good that we can do. This is what we must teach our children, to think of others more than they think of themselves, for it is in this way they will find the most noble satisfaction of all. ~ Maurice Drouhin writing to his wife from prison in 1941

A Wrong Planet Chef always take an interest in the origins of the food he cooks. A particular dish of vegetables, herbs and spices could, for instance, have begun life 5000 years ago on the Indian subcontinent, perhaps in Central India where vegetarian Hindi food is considered as God (Brahman) as it sustains the entire physical, mental, emotional and sensual aspects of the human being. The dish may then have migrated to the Punjab region of the Indian-Pakistan border - The Land of Five Waters - around 250 BC, and from here could have moved on to Western Asia or North Africa as soldiers and merchants moved west with their families into the Eastern parts of the Roman empire, where the cooks would have experimented with new combinations of food, adding fruits, shellfish or poultry to the exotic dish. The dish could then have travelled in any direction heading North through Germany or Sweden to Britain or maybe migrating through Persia or North Africa to Spain and Portugal, creating two very distinct and separate menus but meeting once again in France

I will say this about the upper echelon in France: they know how to spend money. From what I saw living in America, wealth is dedicated to elevating the individual experience. If you’re a well-off child, you get a car, or a horse. You go to summer camps that cost as much as college. And everything is monogrammed, personalized, and stamped, to make it that much easier for other people to recognize your net worth. …The French bourgeois don’t pine for yachts or garages with multiple cars. They don’t build homes with bowling alleys or spend their weekends trying to meet the quarterly food and beverage limit at their country clubs: they put their savings into a vacation home that all their family can enjoy, and usually it’s in France. They buy nice food, they serve nice wine, and they wear the same cashmere sweaters over and over for years. I think the wealthy French feel comfortable with their money because they do not fear it. It’s the fearful who put money into houses with even bedrooms and fifteen baths. It’s the fearful who drive around in yellow Hummers during high-gas-price months becasue if they’re going to lose their money tomorrow, at least other people will know that they are rich today. The French, as with almost all things, privilege privacy and subtlety and they don’t feel comfortable with excess. This is why one of their favorite admonishments is tu t’es laisse aller. You’ve lost control of yourself. You’ve let yourself go.

Sweet wine from Spain and gossip from France; the sun in the windows dimmed, sorrowed prettily as the day declined, until the candles' light was mirrored in the glass. Their dabbling flames were like guesses at a feeling, the hearth's fire like the feeling itself. It was a beautiful pastime she had missed; hours that had stepped light-footed on Emilia's memory and passed on.

The impact of a dollar upon the heart" The impact of a dollar upon the heart Smiles warm red light Sweeping from the hearth rosily upon the white table, With the hanging cool velvet shadows Moving softly upon the door. The impact of a million dollars Is a crash of flunkeys And yawning emblems of Persia Cheeked against oak, France and a sabre, The outcry of old beauty Whored by pimping merchants To submission before wine and chatter. Silly rich peasants stamp the carpets of men, Dead men who dreamed fragrance and light Into their woof, their lives; The rug of an honest bear Under the feet of a cryptic slave Who speaks always of baubles, Forgetting state, multitude, work, and state, Champing and mouthing of hats, Making ratful squeak of hats, Hats.

Consumable commodities, it is said, are soon destroyed; whereas gold and silver are of a more durable nature, and, were it not for this continual exportation, might be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the real wealth of the country. Nothing, therefore, it is pretended, can be more disadvantageous to any country, than the trade which consists in the exchange of such lasting for such perishable commodities. We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the exchange of the hard-ware of England for the wines of France; and yet hard-ware is a very durable commodity, and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country.

A few weeks into our stay, I made a friend who wanted to improve his English as much as I wanted to improve my French. We met one day in the crowd in front of Notre Dame. We walked to the Latin Quarter. We walked to a wine shop. Outside the wine shop there was seating. We sat and drank a bottle of red. We were served heaping piles of meats, bread, and cheese. Was this dinner? Did people do this? I had not even known how to imagine it.

I don’t know how much time we have left. Could be fifty years. Could be one more week. But I do know that we’re not going to get cheated out of one second of being together. We’re going to share everything and feel everything together. And I am going to let you know, in the way I touch you, and the way I kiss you”—as he said it, he touched her, and kissed her—“that you are the best thing in my life. And I’m a selfish man, and I want every inch of you, and every minute of your life I can have. There’s no my life anymore. And no your life. Just our life, and we’re going to have it our way. I want birthday cake every day and you naked in bed every night. And when it’s time to be done, we’ll have that our way, too. We’ll open that bottle of wine we bought in France and listen to our favorite music and have some laughs and take some happy pills and go to sleep. Die pretty after the party is over, instead of going down screaming

I spent a year learning how to slice, dice, chop, and taste- perfecting dishes like boeuf bourguignon, cassoulet, filet de porc vouvray, and lapin à la moutarde. I studied fine wines and the difference between a brunoise and a mirepoix. I apprenticed with Jacques Vincent at Le Diamond in the Jura Mountains outside of Geneva. I dined at some of the best restaurants in France. I had it good and I know it. Plenty of people would kill to go to cooking school in France. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

I was eager to try these delicacies, and was thrilled when Bugnard instructed me on where to buy a proper haunch of venison and how to prepare it. I picked a good-looking piece, then marinated it in red wine, aromatic vegetables, and herbs, and hung the lot for several days in a big bag out the kitchen window. When I judged it ready, by smell, I roasted it for a good long while. The venison made a splendid dinner, with a rich, deep, gamy-tasting sauce, and for days afterward Paul and I feasted on its very special cold meat. When the deer had given us its all, I offered the big leg-bone structure to Minette. “Would you like to try this, poussiequette?” I asked her, laying the platter on the floor. She approached tentatively and sniffed. Then the wild-game signals must have hit her central nervous system, for she suddenly arched her back and, with hair standing on end, let out a snarling groowwwwllll! She lunged at the bone and, grabbing it with her sharp teeth, dragged it out onto the living-room rug—luckily a well-worn Oriental—where she chewed at it for a good hour before stalking off. (Even in such intense circumstances, she rarely laid paw on bone, preferring to use her teeth.)

The rosé was dry and crisp and perfect. The baguette was ambrosia: crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. What was it about bread in France? Like the French version of butter, it seemed to bear little relation to the item of the same name back home. Genevieve sliced a wedge of pâté, topped it with a cornichon, and made a little sandwich. Another glass of wine, a bit of cheese: P’tit Basque, tangy Roquefort, a stinky and delicious washed-rind Brie. Even the pear seemed better than the ones she was used to: the perfect combination of tangy and sweet, the juice running down her arm as she ate. Sated,

There was something in Lima that was wrappd up in yards of violet satin from which protruded a great dropsical head and two fat pearly hands; and that was its archbishop. Between the rolls of flesh that surrounded them looked out two black eyes speaking discomfort, kindliness, and wit. A curious and eager soul was imprisoned in all this lard, but by dint of never refusing himself a pheasant or a goose or his daily procession of Roman wines, he was his own bitter jailer. He loved his cathedral; he loved his duties; he was very devout. Some days he regarded his bulk ruefully; but the distress of remorse was less poignant than the distress of fasting, and he was presently found deliberating over the secret messages that a certain roast sends to the certain salad that will follow it. And to punish himself he led an exemplary life in every other respect. He had read all the literature of antiquity and forgotten all about it except a general aroma of charm and disillusion. He had been learned in the Fathers and the Councils and forgotten all about them save a floating impression of dissensions that had no application to Peru. He had read all the libertine masterpieces of Italy and France and reread them annually;

But despite this work, it seems that very few people in the seventeenth century had any idea what a salt was. A 1636 book by Bernard Palissy, with the dreamy title How to Become Rich and the True Way in Which Every Man in France Could Grow and Multiply Their Treasury and Possessions, states that “sugar is a salt.” In listing all the “various salts,” Palissy includes “grape salt, which gives taste and flavor to wine.” It is not surprising that he concluded that it was impossible to list all the salts. In John Evelyn’s 1699 discourse on salads, he states that sugar is sometimes referred to as “Indian salt.” Apparently, there was little definition of salt other than as something made of white crystals.

I want to live in America!' This was met with protests. 'Will you leave us all behind?' asked his mother. 'I want you to come too.' Said Luke. But nobody wanted to go. 'America is a fine country, no question.' Said Monsieur Gascon expansively. 'They have everything there, big cities, not like Paris of course, but great lakes and mountains and prairies as far as the eye can see. If your own country is not so good, if you're English or German or Italian, unless you're rich, milor, it's probably better in America. But in France, we have everything. We have mountains, the Alps and the Pyrénées. We have great rivers like the Seine and the Rhone. We have huge farmlands and forests. We have cities and cathedrals, and Roman ruins in the south. We have every kind of climate. We have the greatest wines in the world and we have 300 cheeses. What more do you want?

Red Red is the wine, red are the carnations. Red is beautiful. Red flowers and red. Color itself is beautiful. The red color is red. Red is the flag, red the poppy. Red are the lips and the mouth. Red are the reality and the Fall. Red are many Blue Leaves. Yellow Yellow is the sand of the earth. Yellow is the color of the bronze forests. Yellow is the hearts of flowers. Yellow are the asters. Yellow is the meadow. of money. the franc is yellow.–brunette. i have seen a yellow franc. yellow is for example my pencil. Violet The color was rose-red then blue came along and cried viola viola violeta. violet was lovely but only in the sky. quite simply this color was lovely you violet. The cry of violet colors. Blue The Red Color. The Yellow Color. The Dark Green. The Sky ELLENO The Patentender The Pedestal, The Ship. The Rainbow. The Sea The Shoreleaves The Water The Leaf Vein The Kleyf (R) “r.” The Locks + The Lock.

The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off. All the while someone is eating the bread of life and drinking the wine, some dirty fat cockroach of a priest who hides away in the cellar guzzling it, while up above in the light of the street a phantom host touches the lips and the blood is pale as water. And out of the endless torment and misery no miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige of relief. Only ideas, pale, attenuated ideas which have to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come forth like bile, like the guts of a pig when the carcass is ripped open. And so I think what a miracle it would be if this miracle which man attends eternally should turn out to be nothing more than these two enormous turds which the faithful disciple dropped in the bidet. What if at the last moment, when the banquet table is set and the cymbals clash, there should appear suddenly, and wholly without warning, a silver platter on which even the blind could see that there is nothing more, and nothing less, than two enormous lumps of shit. That, I believe would be more miraculous than anything which man has looked forward to. It would be miraculous because it would be undreamed of. It would be more miraculous than even the wildest dream because anybody could imagine the possibility but nobody ever has, and probably nobody ever again will. Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself. Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment.

She browned onions and garlic, and from the pot on the windowsill, chopped a few winter-sad leaves of tarragon. The smell was green and strong, and she thought of spring. Spring in Dijon, when she and Al would hike into the mountains with the Club Alpin, the old women forever chiding her tentative steps, her newborn French: la petite violette, violette américaine. She would turn back to Al, annoyed, and he would laugh. Hardly his delicate flower. When they stopped for lunch, it was Mary Frances with the soufflé of calves' brains, whatever was made liver or marrow, ordering enough strong wine that everyone was laughing. The way home, the women let her be. If she wanted calves' brains now, she wouldn't even know where to begin to look or how to pay. She and Al seemed to be living on vegetables and books, tobacco, quiet. She blanched a bunch of spinach and chopped it. She beat eggs with the tarragon, heated the skillet once again. There was a salad of avocados and oranges. There was a cold bottle of ale and bread. Enough, for tonight.

In France, caviar, truffles and foie gras are considered to be the three major delicacies. And when the French eat caviar, they don't drink wine with it. The French aren't stupid. They're more than aware that no wine goes well with caviar. That's why they drink vodka with it. But they don't know about sake." "You're right. Vodka's usually served with caviar." "But vodka really isn't a drink to have during a meal." "It's not just caviar--- I don't think wine goes well with any kind of seafood. It doesn't matter whether the fish is grilled, simmered, raw or in a bouillabaisse. And it's completely out of the question for things like raw oysters, karasumi and sea urchin. Wine contains far more sodium than sake. And some of those sodium compounds do not mix well with the fats in the fish, so that distinctive seafood flavor ends up being emphasized even more. On the other hand, sake has hardly any sodium, so it doesn't bring out the fishiness. And the sugars from the rice starch enhance the flavor of the food." "Hmm." "Come to think of it, shiokara tastes a lot better when you eat it with rice than when you eat it on its own. I guess this is the same thing. It's the power of rice.

The illusions of childhood had vanished, so also had the ideas he brought with him from the provinces; he had returned thither with an intelligence developed, with loftier ambitions, and saw things as they were at home in the old manor house. His father and mother, his two brothers and two sisters, with an aged aunt, whose whole fortune consisted in annuities, lived on the little estate of Rastignac. The whole property brought in about three thousand francs; and though the amount varied with the season (as must always be the case in a vine-growing district), they were obliged to spare an unvarying twelve hundred francs out of their income for him. He saw how constantly the poverty, which they had generously hidden from him, weighed upon them; he could not help comparing the sisters, who had seemed so beautiful to his boyish eyes, with women in Paris, who had realized the beauty of his dreams. The uncertain future of the whole family depended upon him. It did not escape his eyes that not a crumb was wasted in the house, nor that the wine they drank was made from the second pressing; a multitude of small things, which it is useless to speak of in detail here, made him burn to distinguish himself, and his ambition to succeed increased tenfold.

I gave them the same advice that had worked for me: Start by stocking your sense memory. Smell everything and attach words to it. Raid your fridge, pantry, medicine cabinet, and spice rack, then quiz yourself on pepper, cardamom, honey, ketchup, pickles, and lavender hand cream. Repeat. Again. Keep going. Sniff flowers and lick rocks. Be like Ann, and introduce odors as you notice them, as you would people entering a room. Also be like Morgan, and look for patterns as you taste, so you can, as he does, “organize small differentiating units into systems.” Master the basics of structure—gauge acid by how you drool, alcohol by its heat, tannin by its dryness, finish by its length, sweetness by its thick softness, body by its weight—and apply it to the wines you try. Actually, apply it to everything you try. Be systematic: Order only Chardonnay for a week and get a feel for its personality, then do the same with Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc, and Cabernet Franc (the Wine Folly website offers handy CliffsNotes on each one’s flavor profile). Take a moment as you drink to reflect on whether you like it, then think about why. Like Paul Grieco, try to taste the wine for what it is, not what you imagine it should be. Like the Paulée-goers, splurge occasionally. Mix up the everyday bottles with something that’s supposed to be better, and see if you agree. Like Annie, break the rules, do what feels right, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

This is a young wine from the Beaujolais, France region, which is produced through carbonic maceration. The grape variety used is Gamay, are known for their fruity fresh taste with very low tannins. Carbonic maceration is the vinification process through which the whole grape is crushed by its own weight, causing the grapes at the bottom of the vessel to begin the fermentation process without actually deliberately intervening in the process. The Beaujolais Nouveau is a marketing phenomenon, which on every year begins to sell on the same date worldwide, this being the third Thursday of November.

His disdain for the contagious fad of blind and comparative tastings of unrelated wines will surely rub some furs the wrong way, as will his indifference to the New-Oak-Cabernet-Sauvignon global boom. Tant mieux …

France is the largest wine consumer with 34.5 million yearly hectoliters; then Italy with 30.8 million; followed by The United States with 21.2 million; Spain with 13.8 million and Argentina with 12.4 million. The annual per capita consumption is at 63.5 liters in Luxemburg, 57 liters in France, 54.7 liters in Italy and 50.2 liters in Portugal.

Humans are better equipped for sight than for smell. We process visual input ten times faster than olfactory. Visual and cognitive cues handily trump olfactory ones, a fact famously demonstrated in a 2001 collaboration between a sensory scientist and a team of oenologists (wine scientists) at the University of Bordeaux in Talence, France.

Made in the Jura Mountains of eastern France, Comté is one of that country’s bestselling cheeses.

It got this hot in the south of France, but it was a dry heat, cooled and tempered by the mistral and scented with the powerful fragrances of lavender, thyme, and rosemary. Here the air was so thick I could practically see it and the smell was the dank chemical odor of soil and plants and grass decomposing

We would sit down fifteen, sometimes twenty, to the table on seder nights: my parents; the maiden aunts - Birdie, Len, and before the war, Dora, sometimes Annie; cousins of varying degree, visiting from France or Switzerland; and always a stranger or two would come. There was a beautiful, embroidered tablecloth which Annie had brought us from Jerusalem, gleaming white and gold on the table. My mother, knowing that sooner or later there would be accidents, always had a preemptive "spill" herself - she would manage somehow, very early in the evening, to tip a bottle of red wine onto the tablecloth, and thereafter no guest would be embarrassed if they knocked over a glass. Though I know she did this deliberately, I could never predict how or when the "accident" would occur; it always looked absolutely spontaneous and authentic. (She would immediately spread salt on he wine stain, and it became much paler, almost disappearing; I wondered why salt had this power.)

It is clear, however, that luck frequently comes to the curious and energetic.

The economy of France nearly collapsed when the new Islamic government prohibited the production of wine or any other alcoholic drink. This caused a small and short-lived rebellion in French rural areas.

Poaching an egg: In a saucepan, boil 4 cups of water and add 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Break the egg into a ramekin. When the water begins to boil, lower the heat until the water simmers gently, and then softly drop the egg into the water. When the egg white begins to congeal, use a spoon to shape into a ball and cook for 2 more minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the egg from the pan and place it in ice water or serve immediately.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a café in Paris overlooking the Luxembourg Garden, just off of Rue Saint-Jacques. Rue Saint-Jacques is likely the oldest road in Paris, and it has a rich literary history. Victor Hugo lived a few blocks from where I’m sitting. Gertrude Stein drank coffee and F. Scott Fitzgerald socialized within a stone’s throw. Hemingway wandered up and down the sidewalks, his books percolating in his mind, wine no doubt percolating in his blood. I came to France to take a break from everything. No social media, no email, no social commitments, no set plans . . . except one project. The month had been set aside to review all of the lessons I’d learned from nearly 200 world-class performers I’d interviewed on The Tim Ferriss Show, which recently passed 100,000,000 downloads. The guests included chess prodigies, movie stars, four-star generals, pro athletes, and hedge fund managers. It was a motley crew. More than a handful of them had since become collaborators in business and creative projects, spanning from investments to indie film. As a result, I’d absorbed a lot of their wisdom outside of our recordings, whether over workouts, wine-infused jam sessions, text message exchanges, dinners, or late-night phone calls. In every case, I’d gotten to know them well beyond the superficial headlines in the media. My life had already improved in every area as a result of the lessons I could remember. But that was the tip of the iceberg. The majority of the gems were still lodged in thousands of pages of transcripts and hand-scribbled notes. More than anything, I longed for the chance to distill everything into a playbook. So, I’d set aside an entire month for review (and, if I’m being honest, pain au chocolat), to put together the ultimate CliffsNotes for myself. It would be the notebook to end all notebooks. Something that could help me in minutes but be read for a lifetime.

Certainly they would have planted more grapes, produced more wine, lowered the price of wine. They would have needed more casks, more boats, more settlers. America might be France today. The King was encouraging settlements, to hold America for France. He was taking every care of the settlers. Still, there are two facts: They planted no more grapes. The settlements grew very slowly.

A man making the confession of any creed worth ten minutes’ intelligent talk is always a man who gains something and gives up something. So long as he does both he can create; for he is making an outline and a shape. Mahomet created, when he forbade wine but allowed five wives: he created a very big thing, which we have still to deal with. The first French Republic created, when it affirmed property and abolished peerages; France still stands like a square, four-sided building which Europe has besieged in vain. The men of the Oxford Movement would have been horrified at being compared either with Moslems or Jacobins. But their subconscious thirst was for something that Moslems and Jacobins had and ordinary Angelicans had not: the exalted excitement of consistency. If you were a Moslem you were not a Bacchanal. If you were a Republican you were not a peer. And so the Oxford men, even in their first and dimmest stages, felt that if you were a Churchman you were not a Dissenter. [...] It was an appeal to reason: reason said that if a Christian had a feast-day he must have a fast-day too. Otherwise, all days out to be alike; and this was the very Utilitarianism against which their Oxford Movement was the first and most rational assault.

cabernet sauvignon is the offspring of sauvignon blanc (which, one day, thought to be in the mid-1700s, had a nice moment in nature with cabernet franc, resulting in cabernet sauvignon).

blanquette de Limoux, a sparkling wine of southwestern France, which he could enjoy for five euros a bottle when even the cheapest supermarket champagnes cost three times as much.

only person watching them. She’d noticed that before with Colin. At large dinners, people a few seats down would stop eating and lean over to listen to him. Colin left James, and a moment later he appeared beside her with a bottle of wine and glasses for her and her father. He kissed Faye, checked his watch, and said, “When can we ask them all to leave?” “Well,” said Deborah, once the guests were gone. “That was a success.” She had arranged for them to borrow her friend’s house in Provence for their honeymoon. “Actually,” Faye had said, “we’re going to India.” And on their honeymoon a week later, in a coracle spinning on a river in Hampi, Faye gripped the straw edges of the boat and she laughed and laughed and laughed. — AFTER THEY WERE MARRIED, my parents often went on trips abroad with his friends, to rented villas in France, Sardinia, Mallorca. I visited the one in Mallorca when I was twenty-two, after saving for months to buy the ticket. I went in September, when the villa where they’d stayed was empty. A sign for a security system was posted

In Marseille you could walk down to the docks in the mornings. They had urchins, still alive. An offhand exchange, a few francs for this delicacy. The rocks are littered with debris, empty shells opened with a knife, rinsed by salt water, and sucked dry on the spot. Men taking lunch with bottles of their hard house wine, watching the boats move in and out. It's the ovaries---the coral ovaries. They are supposed to transfer a great power when you consume them. Absolutely voluptuous, the texture, absolutely permanent, the taste. It stays with you for the rest of your life." She went toward the door, pulling her hair back. She looked at me thoughtfully. "There are so many things to be blasé about your youth, your health, your employment. But real food---gifts from the ocean, no less---is not one of them. It's one of the only things that can immerse you safely in pleasure in this degraded, miserable place.

Here is everything I know about France: Madeline and Amelie and Moulin Rouge. The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, although I have no idea what the function of either actually is. Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and a lot of kings named Louis. I'm not sure what they did either, but I think it has something to do with the French Revolution, which has something to do with Bastille Day. The art museum is called the Louvre and it's shaped like a pyramid and the Mona Lisa lives there along with that statue of the woman missing her arms. And there are cafes or bistros or whatever they call them on every street corner. And mimes. The food is supposed to be good, and the people drink a lot of wine and smoke a lot of cigarettes.

Choosing a wine to pair with escargot is difficult. The escargot have been grilled with garlic butter and have a strong, meaty taste. But they're neither seafood nor red meat. So none of these wines would be right." "But I thought escargot was a common dish in France. So wouldn't they know what the right wine pairing would be?" "Like Koizumi-san said, Chablis, Meursalt or Pouilly Fuissé wouldn't go well with the escargot. Even with red wine, you'd have to choose a very full-bodied one. Try tasting the escargot with Koshino-Karoku." "The strong aftertaste of the garlic butter is washed away. It's a lot more refreshing!" "And it helps bring out the rustic flavor of the escargot!

Mr. Nobley had entered the room before he noticed her. He groaned. “And here you are. Miss Erstwhile. You are infuriating and irritating, and yet I find myself looking for you. I would be grateful if you would send me away and make me swear to never return.” “You shouldn’t have told me that’s what you want, Mr. Nobley, because now you’re not going to get it.” “Then I must stay?” “Unless you want to risk me accusing you of ungentleman-like behavior at dinner, yes, I think you should stay. If I spend too much time alone today, I’m in real danger of doing a convincing impersonation of the madwoman in the attic.” He raised an eyebrow. “And how would that be different from--” “Sit down, Mr. Nobley,” she said. He sat in a chair on the opposite side of a small table. The chair creaked as he settled himself. She didn’t look at him, watching instead the rain on the window and the silvery shadows the wet light made of the room. She spent several moments in silence before she realized that it might be awkward, that conversation at such a time was obligatory. Now she could feel his gaze on her face and longed to crack the silence like the spine of a book, but she had nothing to say anymore. She’d lost all her thoughts in paint and rain. “You are reading Sterne,” he said at last. “May I?” He gestured to the book, and she handed it to him. Jane was remembering a scene from the film of Mansfield Park when suitor Henry Crawford read to Frances O-Connor’s character so sweetly, the sound created a passionate tension, the words themselves becoming his courtship. Jane glanced at Mr. Nobley’s somber face, and away again as his eyes flicked from the page to her. He began to read from the top. His voice was soft, melodious, strong, a man who could speak in a crowd and have people listen, but also a man who could persuade a child to sleep with a bedtime story. “The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the same wine at the Cape, the same grape produced upon the French mountains--he was too phlegmatic for that--but undoubtedly he expected to drink some sort of vinous liquor; but whether good, bad, or indifferent--he knew enough of this world to know, that it did not depend upon his choice…” Mr. Nobley was trying very hard not to smile. His lips were tight; his voice scraped a couple of times. Jane laughed at him, and then he did smile. It gave her a little thwack of pleasure as though someone had flicked a finger against her heart. “Not very, er…” he said. “Interesting?” “I imagine not.” “But you read it well,” she said. He raised his brows. “Did I? Well, that is something.” They sat in silence a few moments, chuckling intermittently. Mr. Nobley began to read again suddenly, “Mynheer might possibly overset both in his new vineyard,” having to stop to laugh again. Aunt Saffronia walked by and peered into the dim room as she passed, her presence reminding Jane that this tryst might be forbidden by the Rules. Mr. Nobley returned to himself. “Excuse me,” he said, rising. “I have trespassed on you long enough.

a Frenchman might say after sipping a smooth red wine: C’est le petit Jésus en culotte de velours! It’s the baby Jesus in velvet shorts! What!? Relax, it’s just the French way of saying “It’s the tops!” (a Roaring Twenties flapper might’ve said, “It’s the cat’s pajamas!”) or it goes down easy, like God in velvet shorts—or underpants, depending on who’s translating. You get the idea, although getting the idea doesn’t make it any less curious. My secret fantasy is to see an American presidential candidate slip up and use that expression on the stump: “Winning Connecticut would be the baby Jesus in velvet shorts!” Not only would his career be over, but I swear, I’d probably make a map of France, right then and there. French and the Middle-Aged Mind Middle age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, Why not?

A luncheon guest at the Bank of France is generally told apologetically, “In the tradition of the bank, we serve only simple fare,” but what follows is a repast during which the constant discussion of vintages makes any discussion of banking awkward, if not impossible, and at which the tradition of simplicity is honored, apparently, by the serving of only one wine before the cognac.

Why should you care about fine wine?” Kramer wrote. “The answer is surprisingly simple: Fine wine can—and indeed will—expand your world. It broadens and deepens the reach of your senses. It can help soften the rough edges of daily life and even remind you that beauty exists in moments when it seems least likely to penetrate your daily life.

While the concepts of vigneron and terroir exist elsewhere in France, no community of vignerons takes all of this more seriously than the subculture, or perhaps, superculture of Burgundian vignerons. These philosopher-farmer-shamans strive to bottle the divine as the divine deserves, convinced that the blood of Christ flows from these veins of the earth. Terroir and vigneron, in Burgundy, are terms of a religion, and of all the sacraments and rituals Burgundian vignerons hold dear, none is more sacred than the marrying of a vine to earth.

Abu Ghraib is the symbol of American mistakes in Iraq, the place where the weird criminal perversions of bored, porn-surfing American teenagers clashed spectacularly with fastidious, sexually inviolate Islamic culture. It was also a most powerful symbol of our misguided perception of ourselves and our place in the world. We came into this war expecting to be treated like the GIs who went into France a half century ago—worshipped, instantly excused for the occasional excess or foible, and handed the keys to both the castle wine cellar and the nurses’ dormitory. Instead we were treated like unclean monsters by the people we liberated, and around the world our every move was viciously scrutinized not only by those same Europeans we rescued ages ago but by our own press. The failure of Abu Ghraib was the failure to accept the role we had created for ourselves as new masters of subject peoples. We wanted to rule absolutely and also to be liked, which was why our first reaction after the scandal broke was to issue profuse apologies, call for a self-flagellating round of investigations, and demand the prison’s closure. A hegemonic power more comfortable with ruling would have just shot the reporter who broke the story and moved on. But America has never been able to stomach that kind of thing, which is why, incidentally, this occupation of Iraq is probably not going to work. We are too civilized to make ourselves truly feared in public, but not civilized enough to properly restrain our power in private.

But if the case be thus with the Latin versions, how great are the contempt and profanation shown in the French, German, Polish and other languages! And yet here is one of the most successful artifices adopted by the enemy of Christianity and of unity in our age, to attract the people. He knew the curiosity of men, and how much one esteems one’s own judgment, and therefore he has induced his sectaries to translate the Holy Scriptures, every one into the tongue of the province where he finds himself placed, and to maintain this unheard-of opinion, that every one is capable of understanding the Scriptures, that all should read them, and that the public offices should be celebrated and sung in the vulgar tongue of each district. But who sees not the artifice? There is nothing in the world which, passing through many hands, does not change and lose it first luster: wine which has been often poured out and poured back loses its freshness and strength, wax when handled changes its color, coins lose their stamp. Be sure also that Holy Scripture, passing through so many translators, in so many versions and reversions, cannot but be altered. And if in the Latin versions there is such a variety of opinion among these turners of Scripture, how much more in their vernacular and mother-tongue editions, which not every one is able to check or to criticize? It gives a very great license to translators to know that they will only be tested by those of their own province. Every district has not such clear seeing eyes as France and Germany. “Are we sure,” says a learned profane writer,927 “that in the Basque provinces and in Brittany there are persons of sufficient judgment to give authority to this translation made into their tongue; the universal Church has no more arduous decision to give;” it is Satan’s plan for corrupting the integrity of this holy Testament. He well knows the result of disturbing and poisoning the source; it is at once to spoil all that comes after.

that

Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things. You will be like one sleeping on the high seas, lying on top of the rigging. ‘They hit me’ you will say ‘but I’m not hurt! They beat me, but I don’t feel it! When will I wake up so I can find another drink?’” Proverbs 23:31-35

Wine was one of the first signs of civilization to appear in the life of human beings,” he said. “It is in the Bible, it is in Homer, it shines through all the pages of history, participating in the destiny of ingenious men. It gives spirit to those who know how to taste it, but it punishes those who drink it without restraint.

Without Al, Mary Frances discovered what she did alone. She liked to cook for herself, to assemble a meal of things he would never consider worth a mealtime - shad roe and toast, soft-set eggs, hearts of celery and palm with a quick yellow mayonnaise, a glass of wine, an open book in her lap and the radio on. The elements that mattered most were the simple ones: butter, salt, a thick plate of white chine and a delicate glass, the music faint, the feel of paper in her hand, and the knowledge that there was more, always more book to read, more wine if she liked it, some cold fruit in the refrigerator when she was hungry again...

FOR MONTHS FOLLOWING THE AMERICANS’ DEAL WITH DARLAN, European exiles gathered at the White Tower, York Minster, and other favored restaurants and pubs in London to smoke endless cigarettes and discuss the agreement’s implications. The Free French were the ones most directly affected, of course. But the other émigrés—Norwegians, Poles, Czechoslovaks, Belgians, and Dutch—were also worried about what the deal might mean for the future. The Nazis had invaded and occupied their countries, too. When the time came for those nations to be liberated, would the Americans cooperate with traitors like Darlan? Most of the Europeans meeting over wine-stained tablecloths that winter had escaped to London in the chaos-filled spring of 1940, when German troops conquered Norway and Denmark, then rolled through France and the Low Countries. Every other day, it seemed, George VI and Winston Churchill had been summoned to one of the city’s train stations to welcome yet another king, queen, president, or prime minister. As the only country in Europe still holding out against Hitler, Britain was, as Polish troops put it, the “Last Hope Island” for émigrés who wanted to continue the fight. And London, which housed de Gaulle’s movement and six governments-in-exile, had become the de facto capital of free Europe. The

For the Rothschilds of Château Lafite-Rothschild in Bordeaux, it meant fleeing the country before the Germans took over their property.

women, in some parts of France, were barred from the chai, or winery, during harvesttime. Their presence, according to superstition, would turn the wine sour.

For Henri Jayer of Vosne-Romanée in Burgundy, it meant trading his wine for food so his family would have enough to eat. For Prince Philippe Poniatowski of Vouvray, it meant burying his best wines in his yard so that he would have something to restart business with after the war.

French winegrowers faced the agonizing prospect of trying to get their harvest in before vineyards were turned into battlefields.

The glorious hours sound not just for heroic action on the battlefield but also for those activities that occur in daily life, for it is when war is over that a soldier’s heart and character are also revealed.

Although the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti would not begin showing a profit until 1959, it was still considered the standard-bearer of great Burgundy, a property that never cut corners or sacrificed quality for the sake of making money.

As in 1914, the government mounted an extraordinary campaign to help. Winegrowers were granted delays in being called to active duty, military labor detachments were sent to the vineyards and farm horses of small growers were not to be requisitioned until the harvest was completed.

Bernard was stunned. He knew the Germans had hauled away millions of bottles of wine from his country; he had even seen some of it stolen from the village where he once worked, but a wine cellar on top of a mountain seemed incredible. To be the one who would open it was almost overwhelming.

Hitler’s cave was much more than a wine cellar; it was a symbol of cruelty and greed, of Nazi Germany’s hunger for wealth and riches.

In his memoirs the author Roald Dahl, who took part in the invasion as a Hurricane pilot, confirmed the impression that the Vichy French were unprepared. Sent to strafe the Vichy aerodrome at Rayak, he recalled, on his first low pass over the landing strip, being astonished to see ‘a bunch of girls in brightly coloured cotton dresses standing out by the planes with glasses in their hands having drinks with the French pilots, and I remember bottles of wine standing on the wing of one of the planes as we went swooshing over’.19 It was a Sunday morning and ‘the Frenchmen were evidently entertaining their girlfriends and showing off their aircraft to them, which was a very French thing to do in the middle of a war at a front-line aerodrome. Every one of us held our fire on that first pass over the flying field and it was wonderfully comical to see the girls all dropping their wine glasses and galloping in their high heels for the door of the nearest building . . . we destroyed five of their planes on the ground.’ But the hope

In France this does not happen,’ he began. ‘We are careful in our passions. When people are angry they drink some wine and they find another woman.

The French had another name for them: the weinführers. Their job as Beauftragter für den Weinimport Frankreich (agents for importing wines from France) was to buy as much good French wine as possible and send it back to Germany, where it would be resold internationally for a huge profit to help pay for the Third Reich’s war.

I like food, I never say ‘no’ to dessert and I’m fond of a glass of wine with dinner. Since moving to the land of the long lunch, I had indulged freely in all the croissants, patisserie and fine red wines that France had to offer. Much of the social life in France revolves around eating enormous meals in friends’ houses, while in the winter months it is easy to fall into the trap of closing the shutters, lighting the fire and cooking a calorie-laden dinner, before collapsing on the sofa with a glass of wine for the rest of the evening.

Freudengässlein, or Lane of Joy.

Speaking of wine, beer never caught on with the ancient Greeks and Romans the way it did in Mesopotamia and Western Europe—at least among the privileged classes, who showed a strong preference for fermented grape juice.[11] Beer was seen as a drink of peasants and savages, earning the contempt of public intellectuals like Pliny the Elder, who, in reference to the people of Spain and Gaul (now France) fumed that, “The perverted ingenuity of man has given even to water the power of intoxicating where wine is not procurable. Western nations intoxicate themselves by means of moistened grain.”[12] One wonders what Pliny would say today if you were to hand him a glass of the famous beer that now bears his name—Pliny the Elder IPA, brewed by California’s Russian River Brewing Co. and renowned as one of the world’s finest beers.