Red, white and woo-hoo: Saturday is National Drink Wine Day
Feb 18, 2017, 5:30 AM
(AP Photo)
(AP Photo)
In America, we like a good celebration. We are just as likely to celebrate hot dogs and doughnuts as we are major holidays. And wine.
As luck would have it, Saturday is National Drink Wine Day — a perfect plan for a drizzly, gray weekend day.
People love drinking wine, collecting wine, reading about wine and talking about wine.
Some of the talk about wine is memorable. Here’s a bit of evidence supporting that:
Sophia Bush
(Instagram Photo)
“Life is too short, and I’m Italian. I’d much rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size zero.”
What a delightful and down-to-earth sentiment from a woman working in front of a camera every day. One of the stars of “Chicago PD,” Bush, 33, has been in the business since she was 19 and has been an advocate of positive body images, especially for younger women. Cheers, Sophia!
W.C. Fields
(Wikipedia Photo)
“I cook with wine; sometimes I even add it to the food.”
The comic actor was known to have … a drink or two. Repeatedly. He also was exceptionally funny. Here’s another: “Once during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.”
Benjamin Franklin
(AP Photo)
“Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance.”
This Founding Father was right on the money!
Joan Collins
(AP Photo)
“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.”
Since the actress, 82, has dated much younger men, we’re giving her this one.
Samuel Johnson
(AP Photo)
“Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.”
The 18th-century Brit writer was a highly respected critic and essayist. He even compiled a dictionary. You have to figure these are pretty good words and truths he strung together about wine.
Maya Angelou
(AP Photo)
“Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.”
Writer, activist, poet, actress, director, Angelou was friend to world leaders, scholars and celebrities. Technically, this quote is more about independence than wine. Still works.
Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist, the Artful Dodger and Fagin.
“Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.”
Given the novelist’s penchant for creating dramatic hard-luck characters often surviving in dreary, emotionally abusive circumstances, yes, please, do pass the rosy wine.
Hannibal Lecter
(AP Photo)
“A Census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
There was no way the brilliant, sophisticated serial killer was going to be left off this list. People who don’t even know what a fava bean is regularly spit out the most famous line from “Silence of the Lambs,” book and movie versions.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(Picjumbo.com Photo)
“What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.”
Oh, wow. That is full-of-sighs beautiful. Then again this is the same English poet who wrote, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
She was married to a highly regarded poet, Robert Browning, as well. If they ever had a conversation that ended with, “Shut your pie hole,” it’s going to be a huge letdown.
John Keats
(KaboomPics.com)
“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”
This is the kind of thing you’d expect an English Romanantic poet to say. Until he gets to the end. Is he praising unknown but talented musicians or insulting ones he does know?
Thomas Aquinas
(Twitter Photo)
“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.”
The guy was a saint. Literally. But before that he was a priest in the 1200s. And a philosopher with a family history worthy of a movie starring Leo DiCaprio. Legend has it that Thomas’ family was all for him becoming a priest. But he didn’t join their preferred order.
So they kidnapped him from college and stuck him in a castle, where they could, presumably, make him see the errors of his way. He was there for a year, remaining steadfast in his choice of the Dominicans. The family let him escape.
Based on his quote, we have a partial idea how he managed to maintain his sanity.
