Depends on the evening. A good red wine is nice in cold weather. A Claret or a Rioja. I've got a good gin we make from damson plums. And you can't beat a glass of champagne every now and again.
You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.
Let us have wine and woman, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda water the day after. Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication: Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk The hopes of all men, and of every nation; Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion: But to return--Get very drunk; and when You wake with head-ache, you shall see what then.
When I'm in Italy on a Friday night, my first supper there is a big bowl of fresh pasta and a glass of local wine, sitting outside. There's nothing better.
There are no standards of taste in wine... Each man's own taste is the standard, and a majority vote cannot decide for him or in any slightest degree affect the supremacy of his own standard.
The music, and the banquet, and the wine-- The garlands, the rose odors, and the flowers, The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments-- The white arms and the raven hair--the braids, And bracelets; swan-like bosoms, and the necklace, An India in itself, yet dazzling not.