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Frequently Asked Questions About Wine, Wine Tasting,
and Travel in the Wine Regions


What is a fortified wine? Where did they come from?

Fortified wine, like sherry or port, has alcohol added to it during the fermenting process. It usually has between 17-24% alcohol in it. Regular wine has between 8-15% alcohol. Fortified wine was developed during the 16th century because it was sturdy enough to stay drinkable during voyages across the ocean.

• Port was first made in Portugal
• Sherry was first made in Spain
• Madeira is Portugese
• Marsala is Italian


How many wineries should we plan to go to in one day?

How much time should you plan on for each winery?

Should we drive ourselves around the wine regions or rent a limo?

Are there any rules of etiquette that are unique to tasting rooms?

Is it OK to wear perfume or cologne when going wine tasting?

Do white wines come from white grapes, and red wine from red grapes? Is the juice a different color from each grape? What about Rosé?

Why should wine be decanted?

Why do you swirl the wine?

In a tasting room, white wines are usually tasted first, followed by the reds, and finally any dessert wines. Why this order?

What about other items in the tasting room, such as crackers, water and wine buckets? What are they for?

Should you taste all the wines being offered at a tasting room?

What is all the information on the label of the wine bottle?

How should I choose wine at a restaurant?

How should open wine be stored?

How do I ship home the wine that I purchased while traveling?
  • 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