May 25 marks the National Wine Day. Just fetch that bottle of Château Cheval Blanc or Château d'Yquem from your wine cellar, get your favorite novel and relax on the couch, or invite your friends over and get the party started.
Apart from making you feel good, wine has a lot of other health benefits — it is said to lower the risk of heart disease, heart strokes, type 2 diabetes, cataracts, colon cancer, and also slow down brain decline, according to Food and Wine magazine. The United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France. California produces 89 percent of all wine in the U.S.
“Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” — Benjamin Franklin
"Wine, like food, is so emotional. If you think about it, so much of the courting ritual is surrounded by wine and food. There's a built-in romance to wine." — Padma Lakshmi
"Wine is the only artwork you can drink." — Luis Fernando Olaverri
"Wine is sunlight, held together by water." — Galileo Galilei
"A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world." — Louis Pasteur
“Age is just a number. It's totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.” — Joan Collins
"God made only water, but man made wine." — Victor Hugo
"We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine." — Eduardo Galeano
"Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read." — Francis Bacon
"Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing." — Ernest Hemingway
“I love everything that's old — old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine." — Oliver Goldsmith
“White wine is like electricity. Red wine looks and tastes like a liquefied beefsteak.” — James Joyce
“There is no wine so sweet as wine taken from a foe.” — George R.R. Martin
“Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle." — Paulo Coelho
"Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath, and a glass of wine." — Thomas Aquinas
“If I had five minutes to live, I don't think I'd be bothered singing a song. I'd be dead, so it won't really matter. I'd have a glass of wine and a cigarette.” — Loudon Wainwright III
"A gourmet meal without a glass of wine just seems tragic to me somehow." — Kathy Mattea
"To take wine into our mouths is to savor a droplet of the river of human history." — Clifton Fadiman
“Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.” — William Butler Yeats
“Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.” — Aristophanes
In this picture, a man is seen filling a glass with a red wine at an international wine fair in the central Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, March 18, 2009. Getty Images
