Written on 26/10/2020
When poets talk
Who better to talk about wine than poets and artists, with their sideways steps and their different view of the world? Many of them have had, continue to have and will continue to have a special relationship with wine, between inspiration and decay, a question of dosage...
Back in the days when scientists still had the souls of poets, Galileo proposed a singular definition of wine, far removed from implacable demonstrations. For him, "wine is water filled with sunlight".
Much later, the French academician Paul Claudel came up with his own theory of the heritage a wine comprises. He said "a great wine is not the work of one man, it is the result of a constant and refined tradition. There are more than a thousand years of history in an old bottle".. It's hard to contradict him when you're strolling through the vineyards of Burgundy, I'm sure you'll agree...
Foreign writers have often praised the quality of French wine, and the playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde once went against history to pay tribute to us, declaring "the French are so proud of their wines that they have named some of their towns after grand cru wines"..
Mark Twain, no stranger to wit, also celebrated our grape varieties by mocking those of our neighbors:
"German wine is distinguished from vinegar by its label".
Charles Baudelaire, on the other hand, locked in his spleen, took up the defense of red wine, asserting that "Wine is like man: we'll never know to what extent we can esteem or despise it, love or hate it, or how many sublime deeds or monstrous crimes it is capable of. So let us be no more cruel to him than to ourselves, and treat him as our equal..
More cheerful but no less a connoisseur, Alexandre Dumas put the church back in the center of the village and the bottle in the middle of the table:
"Wine is the intellectual part of a meal. Meat and vegetables are only the material part.
For her part, Colette offers advice to all young men:
"If I had a son to marry, I'd tell him: Beware of the girl who doesn't like wine, truffles, cheese or music!
Finally, Mary Higgins Clark shares her life (and death) hygiene with us:
"A day without wine is like a day without sunshine. But don't jump to conclusions. I drink in moderation. That said, on the day I die, I'd like someone to place a spiral notebook, a pen and a bottle of wine in my coffin. That way, I'll be equipped to write from beyond the grave.
