sophie's fair

Riesling (c) Beverly's Wine

"You have only so many bottles in your life, never drink a bad one."
-- Len Evans

they say that wine is good for the heart. i say, it depends on the quality of the wine, naturally. i'm not a wine connoisseur but i can appreciate fine living and wine is an art. wine speaks of the person who drinks it and my personal favourites are sparkling wine and riesling.

"It would be a narrow and fanatical wine lover who would exclude white wines from his appreciation, though in certain respects they cannot claim equality with the great red wines. They have, however, their own appointed times and moods... "
-- H. Warner Allen

rieslings are "both floral and fruity, and can be delicate, subtle, and low in alcohol, making for a very nice summer wine... true riesling grapes are the source of some of the best wines of europe, including germany's rhein and mosel river regions as well as alsace in france... they can range in style from very dry to very sweet. typically, they have a lively fragrant, fruity and floral bouquet." riesling is the most noble and expressive of white wine grape varieties.

"My only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne."
-- John Maynard Keynes

champagne is the best wine to be served at any celebration. the original french methode champenoise, developed in the early 1700's, is a painstaking, laborious, and expensive multi-step process, but the most critical step is the winemaker's choice of grapes for blending. the exact blending process remains the secret patent of each winemaker. "eventhough effervescent wines abound throughout the world, true champagne comes only from france's northernmost wine-growing area, the champagne region, just 90 miles northeast of paris. this renowned region consists of four main growing areas -- montagne de reims, côtes des blancs, vallée de la marne, and the aube -- and a fifth area that's evolving, côte de sézanne... the name champagne has become a blanket term for sparkling wine, [but] any variety made anywhere other than the champagne region of france, where the style originated, is not true champagne." 'bubbly' or sparkling wine is a great apéritif -- luscious, enticing, flavoursome -- a most companionable drink.

"Other countries drink to get drunk, and this is accepted by everyone; in France, drunkenness is a consequence, never an intention. A drink is felt as the spinning out of a pleasure, not as the necessary cause of an effect which is sought: wine is not only a philtre, it is also the leisurely act of drinking."
-- Roland Barthes

the first thing that calls to mind when we talk of wines & spirits, is social drinking. social drinking refers to casual complimentary drinking, for the most part without the intent to get drunk. oftentimes though, that isnt the case. many people are classified as binge drinkers where alcohol is entirely used for the purpose of intoxification. free drink[ing] is a liturgy which has existed at assorted times and within several cultures and traditions. interestingly, it characterizes the human need and capacity for customary societal gatherings and basic greed.

"For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red."
-- Psalm 75:8

however we define it, drinking will always be part of our natural existence. it is both a religious and traditional ceremony. choosing the right beverage was a zilch considering that riesling and champagne speak of me in distinctive ways.

did you know...
the oldest, still-living wine ever tasted was not red -- it was a german riesling from the 1540 vintage. it was tasted in 1961, after 420 years, and had not yet perished.
and
champagne was accidentally discovered by french monk dom pérignon. in his management of wine cellars, he discovered that the bubbles were the result of an incomplete fermentation process, which stopped during the cooler months and resumed when the weather began to warm.