A Word on Wine

"Wine talks; ask anyone.  The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool.  It ventriloquizes.  It has a million voices.  It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew.  It shouts, rants, whispers.  It speaks of great plans, tragic loves and terrible betrayals.  It screams with laughter.  It chuckles softly to itself.  It weeps in front of its own reflection.  It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten.  Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, every one - from the commonest Liebfraumilch to the imperious Veuve Clicquot - a humble miracle.  Everyday magic, Joe had called it.  The transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams.  Layman's alchemy."

-quoted from the novel, Blackberry Wine, by Joanne Harris

Is that not the most perfect doorway into a story that you have ever read?  Okay, there are many other brilliant writers and brilliant first paragraphs...but this?  This?  Wine's every nuance and consequence laid bare, so eloquently that you can taste it.  The words themselves are intoxicating.

And this next, not quite a literary quote, but I happened upon it the other day, and had a good giggle.

Charles & Charles 2010 Rose.  The display sign read:  "You can drink rose, and still be a badass."

I did.  And I am.

And by the way, that rose is scrumptious.  Also local, if you're a fellow Washingtonian.  And Blackberry Wine, by Joanne Harris...delicious.  Help yourselves to some of both.

Have a lovely day.