‘Between the rhetorical and the real lies ritual. And wine is a ritual thing before it is any other kind of thing.’

‘ … it is not wine that makes us happy for no reason; it is the alcohol that makes us happy for no reason. Wine is what gives us a reason to let alcohol make us happy without one. It’s the ritual context that civilizes the simple need.’

Adam Gopnik, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food, London: Quercus, 2011, 186, 189.