Poems about Wine

The poem suggests that drinking wine is linked with memories and allows one to cope with challenging emotions. The wine's trance-like effect transports the drinker into a world of bittersweet memories. The act of wine tasting becomes a sensory experience that eases the mind and triggers recollections, creating a complex interplay between the old and the new. Like a time-traveling elixir, it enables one to relive the past, connecting the present with moments thought to be lost; as the speaker says, 'I leaned my face in, alive in both worlds at once, knowing it would end and not caring.'

I think I detect cracked leather.

I’m pretty sure I smell the cherries

from a Shirley Temple my father bought me

in 1959, in a bar in Orlando, Florida,

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"> 90/100

Before The Cask of Wine

by Li Bai

‘Before The Cask of Wine’ is a beautiful lyric that emphasizes enjoying one’s youthful hours to the fullest. As one can’t savor those moments in old age.

Li Bai is known for his poems about wine and was part of the 'Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup,' formed by wine-loving classical Chinese poets and scholars. In this poem, offering euphoric intoxication, wine symbolizes the significance of fleeting moments of celebration and enjoyment. It encourages readers to savor life's present moments before they fade away, accentuating the ephemeral nature of youth and beauty, much like the impermanence of the intoxicating joy of wine. Withal, the mention of a wine-flushed pretty girl underscores the association of wine with vitality, pleasure, and transient beauty.

The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes,

Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the golden bowl.

The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads together.

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The Solitude of Night

by Li Bai

‘The Solitude of Night’ by Li Bai portrays the speaker’s solitude in the aftermath of a wine party at night.

'Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup,' a group of Tang Dynasty poets Li was part of, is known for their extraordinary love and consumption of wine. In the poem, wine serves as a transformative elixir, enabling the poet to enter an extraordinary state, transcending ordinary consciousness. The fragmentary recollections of the wine party, which include blown flowers, departing birds, river, and moonlight, transform into this profound poem. The poem exudes aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual aura, celebrating the connection between wine, camaraderie, and artistic inspiration.

It was at a wine party—

I lay in a drowse, knowing it not.

The blown flowers fell and filled my lap.

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"> 85/100

Rubaiyat XII: A Book of Verses underneath the Bough

by Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam’s ‘Rubaiyat XII,’ translated by Edward Fitzgerald, celebrates life, exploring happiness amidst transient existence.

The 'Jug of Wine' is one of the elements that contribute to the speaker's vision of paradise. Wine compliments the hedonistic thematics of sensory pleasures, celebration, and enjoyment while metaphorically representing the intoxicating beauty of life and treasuring significant moments. Coupled with other elements like poetry, bread, the beloved, and nature, wine becomes essential in the holistic celebration of existence, becoming the intoxicating elixir representing the beauty of ephemeral yet sublime moments.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread—and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness—

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

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Three with the Moon and his Shadow

by Li Bai

‘Three with the Moon and His Shadow’ by Li Bai contemplates solitude, friendship, and transcendental connections.

In this poem, wine offers an escape from solitude, as the speaker drinks alone. The wine symbolizes a source of pleasure and escape, allowing the speaker to transcend their solitude momentarily. It catalyzes the celebration and unity the speaker seeks yet can't achieve in reality. The inebriation provides companionship in otherworldly experiences and offers moments of ease even though the moon and the shadow cannot physically drink. Paradoxically, the poem also highlights wine's social significance while temporarily relieving the speaker from solitude.

With a jar of wine I sit by the flowering trees.

I drink alone, and where are my friends?

Ah, the moon above looks down on me;

I call and lift my cup to his brightness.

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"> 78/100

Be Drunk

by Charles Baudelaire

‘Be Drunk’ by Charles Baudelaire is a stirring poem meant to incite the reader to passion about life.

Baudelaire uses wine not merely as a literal substance but as a symbol representing various avenues to live the mortal life more intensely in some way, likely to be high on a passion for something beyond the mundane burdens of existence to defy the constraint of mortality or time. Wine is traditionally associated with intoxication and sensory and hedonistic pleasures, suggesting a heightened state of consciousness that transcends the mundane constraints of everyday life.

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

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Ode to a Nightingale

by John Keats

‘Ode to a Nightingale,’ written in 1819, is one of John Keats’ six famous odes. It’s the longest, with eight 10-line stanzas, and showcases Keats’ signature style of vivid imagery and emotional depth, exploring themes like beauty and mortality.

In this poem, the intoxication of wine serves as a means of escapism. The speaker longs for a 'draught of vintage,' representing a yearning for a sensory experience that can help transcend ordinary consciousness, reaching sublime oblivion and reprieving mortality's burdens. Wine becomes a metaphor for the speaker's quest for transcendence. The speaker rejects wine as a means for transcendence, realizing that true transcendence lies not in the temporary escapism of wine but in the immortal and sublime artistry of the nightingale's song.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

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To a Skylark

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

‘To a Skylark’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley is an ode. It celebrates the beauty of nature and the bliss of a skylark’s song.

Wine symbolizes intoxication and sensory pleasure in the poem. It contrasts the much-celebrated earthly pleasure with the Skylark's song, suggesting that even the most renowned human experiences fall short of the transcendent beauty embodied by the bird's melody. Thus, wine becomes a mere earthly indulgence when measured against Skylark's sublime song, representing a broader theme of the inadequacy of worldly pleasures compared to the purity of nature and art.

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from Heaven, or near it,

#10

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Nationality: American

Themes: Identity, Journey, Nature

Emotions: Enjoyment, Excitement

Topics:

Wine

Adulthood, Daily Life, Drinks, Feminism, Hard Times, Imagination, Life Lessons, Life Struggles

Forms: Ballad, Quatrain

Genre: Lyric

"> 62/100

I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed

by Emily Dickinson

‘I tasted a liquor never brewed’ by Emily Dickinson celebrates life. The poet uses natural imagery, such as that of berries, and pearls, to depict it.

In the line 'Not all the Frankfort Berries,' 'Frankfort Berries' likely refers to grapes used for winemaking. The mention of wine symbolizes a conventional source of intoxication, contrasting with the peculiar nature-derived intoxication, attributing eminence to the sensory pleasure induced by nature. The poem accentuates nature's extraordinary transcendental and spiritual qualities by comparing it to the worldly pleasure of wine.

I taste a liquor never brewed –

From Tankards scooped in Pearl –

Not all the Frankfort Berries

Yield such an Alcohol!

#11

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Loving Someone You Can't Have

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Under the Waterfall

by Thomas Hardy

‘Under the Waterfall’ is a nostalgic poem where plunging into water revives memories of lost love and an enduring symbol – a glass.

Wine is part of the memory being shared. The speaker and her lover brought a basket of fruit and wine, and they drank from one glass. The glass becomes the focus of the story after it is lost in the stream, but the wine is a symbol of their closeness. It represents a shared experience, something intimate and joyful. It adds to the picture of that day, helping make the memory feel complete and real.

'Whenever I plunge my arm, like this,

In a basin of water, I never miss

The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day

Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray.

#12

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Coming Home

by Owen Sheers

‘Coming Home’ by Owen Sheers is a thoughtful poem that describes the transitory nature of life. The poet explores aging, family, and the impact of change.

In the final stanza, the act of the grandfather pouring wine becomes a thoughtful and emotional detail. His shaking hands and careful movements turn something simple into something deeply meaningful. It is not just about sharing a drink, but about the effort to keep family traditions going even as age takes its toll. The image of wine passing from hand to hand suggests a quiet message about enjoying time together before it slips away.

My mother’s hug is awkward,

As if the space between her open arms

is reserved for a child, not this body of a man.

In the kitchen she kneads the dough,

12 Delightful Poems about Wine

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12 Delightful Poems about Wine

by George Santayana

by Kim Addonizio

by Li Bai

by Li Bai

by Omar Khayyam

by Li Bai

by Charles Baudelaire

by John Keats

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

by Emily Dickinson

by Thomas Hardy

by Owen Sheers

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