Your Resource For Wine Region Travel Home Educational Wine Tours Articles & Recipes Wine Region Info Lori's Blog Forum Links About Us Interviews Ask The Winemaker Food/Wine Pairing Haiku Contest 2009 Wine FAQ Anderson Valley / Mendocino / Lake Livermore Valley Monterey / San Benito Napa Valley Paso Robles / San Luis Obispo Russian River / Sonoma County Santa Cruz / Santa Clara Santa Barbara / Santa Ynez Sierra Foothills / Lodi Sonoma Valley Temecula / San Diego Oregon New Zealand Brandon Lapides is winemaker at Armida Winery in the Russian River Valley wine region.   Ask the Winemaker: Full Archive Post questions to the ViciVino.com Forum or email winemaker@ vicivino.com   Ask the Winemaker Sometimes with wine you feel like a two year old:  all you can do is ask "Why?"  Nothing to be embarrassed about.  Wine is a complicated mix of biology and chemistry, art and magic, earth and individuals.  No one has all the answers.  But some of the questions can be answered.  To do this, we've brought in a winemaker to answer the questions that you send to us.  He also gave us regular updates on harvest activities, that frenetic time when all those factors come together in 80 hour work weeks, where the destinies of the wineries' vintage are determined.  The latest column is below, with previous columns available in the Ask The Winemaker Archive.   Ask the Winemaker: Harvest 2009, Final Interview with Winemaker B Winemaker B Any more questions? Please feel free to either comment in the ViciVino.com Discussion Forum or email me directly at winemaker@vicivino.com. For when the wine is in, the wit is out. ~ Thomas Becon Grapes are the most noble and challenging of fruits. ~ Malcolm Dunn Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used. ~ William Shakespeare After-dinner talk across the walnuts and the wine. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson A man not old, but mellow, like good wine. ~ Stephen Phillips Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French. ~ John Masefield Veni Vidi Vici Vino! [I came, I saw, I conquered Wine] ~ Lori Lapides Days of wine and roses laugh and run away, like a child at play. ~ Johnny Mercer Fill high the cup with Samian wine! ~ Lord Byron Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, an' fill it in a silver tassie. ~ Robert Burns And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,'I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine'. ~ G.K. Chesterton The wine they drink in Paradise they make in Haute Lorraine. ~ G.K. Chesterton Wino Forever. ~ Johnny Depp The smell of wine, oh how much more delicate, cheerful, gratifying, celestial and delicious it is than that of oil. ~ Rabelias Gargantua Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil. ~ Samuel Johnson If God forbade drinking, would He have made wine so good? ~ Cardinal Richeleu Wine and wenches empty men's purses. ~ English Proverb Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda-water the day after. ~ Lord Byron, Don Juan Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. ~ 1 Timothy, 5:23 Wine gives us liberty, love takes it away. wine makes us princes, love makes us beggars. ~ Wycherly Wine ... cheereth God and man. ~ Judges, 9:13 Wine is bottled poetry. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson A man cannot make him laugh - but that's no marvel; he drinks no wine. ~ Shakespeare Good wine ruins the purse; bad wine ruins the stomach. ~ Spanish saying The best use of bad wine is to drive away poor relations. ~ French proverb I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines. ~ Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) Burgundy for kings, champagne for duchesses, claret for gentlemen. ~ Anon French Proverb He who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long. ~ Martin Luther, 1777 God made only water, but man made wine. ~ Vixtor Hugo, 1856 Blessed is the fruit of the Vine. ~ Jewish Prayer Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages. ~ Louis Pasteur What though youth gave love and roses age still leaves us friends and wine. ~ Thomas Moore Up to the age of forty eating is beneficial. After forty, drinking. ~ The Talmud, 200BC Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The great evil of wine is that it first seizes the feet, it is a crafty wrestler. ~ Titus Maccius Wine that maketh glad the heart of man. ~ The Book of Psalms How much better is thy love than wine! ~ The Song of Solomon Like the best wine . . . that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak. ~ The Song of Solomon Over the wine-dark sea. ~ Homer Wine is a peep-hole on a man. ~ Alcaeus It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine. ~ Heraclitus In vino veritas [In wine is truth]. ~ Proverb quoted by Plato I am falser than vows made in wine. ~ William Shakespeare From wine what sudden friendship springs! ~ John Gay Who does not love wine, women, and song remains a fool his whole life long. ~ Johann Heinrich Voss What though youth gave love and roses, age still leaves us friends and wine. ~ Thomas Moore Con pan y vino se anda el camino [With bread and wine you can walk your road]. ~ Anonymous: Spanish Proverb Wine gives courage and makes men more apt for passion. ~ Ovid Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever. ~ Aristophanes Hey Man, I'm drinking wine, eating cheese and catching some rays. ~ Donald Sutherland Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence. ~ Robert Fripp Despair is vinegar from the wine of hope. ~ Austin O'Malley In water one sees one's own face; But in wine, one beholds the heart of another. ~ An Old Frech proverb Give me wine to wash me clean of the weather-stains of care. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson You can have too much champagne, but you can never have enough. ~ Elmer Rice