Wine:  Red wine, white wine, rose wine, sparkling wine, sparkling rose wine, Port wine, Madeira wine, sherry wine, sweet wine, dry wine!!!!  The options are vast but what is wine?  Wine can be technically defined as "an alcoholic beverage obtained from the fermentation of the juice of freshly gathered grapes, the fermentation taking place in the district of origin according to local tradition and practice".  Possibly a little wordy but this formal definition of "wine" does encompass the important point that wine has a sense of belonging.  A shorter and perhaps more pleasant definition was provided by Robert Louis Stevenson "Wine is bottled poetry."

The modern English word "wine" is derived from the Old English win pronounced like "wean" in the times of Chaucer but had transformed more to the modern pronunciation by Shakespeare's time: Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used." William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Othello, II. iii. (315).  The Old English win was itself derived from the Latin vinum, probably coming over with the Romans who would have introduced wine to the beer drinking natives of these isles.

I think it is fair to say that wine has captured the heart of humans more than any other beverage.  The whole essence of Burgundy is that the producer is trying to connect with the consumer through the concept of terroir.  I do not think that any other drink has been the subject of such fantastic quotes over time and here I'd like to share some of my favourites with you:

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
Death in the Afternoon 

Drink wine, and you will sleep well. Sleep, and you will not sin. Avoid sin, and you will be saved. Ergo, drink wine and be saved.
Medieval German saying 

When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends.
Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.
Aristophanes c. 450 - 385 B.
Knights [424 B.C.], l. 92 

I can certainly see that you know your wine. Most of the guests who stay here wouldn't know the difference between Bordeaux and Claret.
John Cleese (Basil Fawlty)
Fawlty Towers 

A German wine label is one of the things life's too short for, a daunting testimony to that peculiar nation's love of detail and organization. 
Kingsley Amis
Everyday Drinking 

Wine ... cheereth God and man.
Judges, 9:13 

If God forbade drinking, would He have made wine so good?
Cardinal Richeleu 

There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be. Our foggy climate wants help.
Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey 

It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking: the arrival of a friend; one's present or future thirst; the excellence of the wine; or any other reason.
Latin saying 

Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.
Louis Pasteur 

Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake.
The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy, 5:23

Con pan y vino se anda el camino [With bread and wine you can walk your road].
Anonymous: Spanish Proverb 

"We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here, and we want them now!"
Withnail in Withnail and I (1987)