With the summer weather firmly entrenched and with less than six weeks from this year’s grapes being picked, I thought I would take the opportunity to veer away from the often straight-laced winey news.

Instead I will embark on something slightly more frivolous that will hopefully raise the odd smile and remind us why it’s such fun to drink wine, in moderation of course. Here are some of my favourite wine quotes, by some pretty impressive individuals, that I have stumbled across over the last few years.

Some of these quotes date back hundreds of years, but amazingly are just as relevant today as they must have been when uttered!

“Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their eighteenth year, for it is wrong to add fire to fire. But after forty years of age, one can toast Dionysus with enthusiasm, for he gave wine to man to soften the bitterness of old age.” – Plato.

“If we drink temperately and small draughts at a time, the wine distils into our lungs like sweet morning dew. It is then the wine commits no rape upon our reason, but pleasantly invites us to agree mirth.” – Socrates.

“Champagne is the only wine which leaves a woman beautiful after drinking it.” ­– Madame De Pompadour.

“I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it – except when I’m thirsty.” – Madame Bollinger.

“Place a substantial meal before a tired man and he will eat with effort and be little better for it at first. Give him a glass of wine or brandy and immediately he feels better; you see him come to life again before you.” – Brillat-Savarin.

“Drink never made a man better, but it has made many a man think he was better.” – Finley Peter Dunne.

“Wine nourishes refreshes and cheers. Whenever wine is lacking, medicines become necessary.” – The Talmud.

“The taste of good wine is remembered long after the price is forgotten”. – Hubrecht Duijker.

“None of us drink alcohol. We drink delicious, liberating, inspiring or socially significant liquids which happen to contain alcohol.” – Jancis Robinson.

“Come, come! Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.” – William Shakespeare.

“Who loves not women, wine and song, remains a fool his whole life long.” – Martin Luther.

“Wine is constant proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy”. – Benjamin Franklin.