Quotation: "Good wine is a necessity of life for me."
Variations:
Sources consulted:
Earliest appearance in print, attributed to Jefferson: Albert Ellery Bergh and Andrew Adgate Lipscomb, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1905), 19:231.
Comments: This misquotation can be attributed mainly to a mistaken transcription which appeared in the Lipscomb-Bergh edition of Jefferson's writings, published in 1905. The editors transcribed Jefferson's statement to his agent Thomas Appleton as follows:
"Perhaps I may trouble you annually to about the same about, this being a very favorite wine, and habit having rendered the light and high flowered wines a necessity of life with me."[1]
This transcription had several errors. The modern transcription reads as follows:
"perhaps I may trouble you annually to about the same amount, this being a very favorite wine, and habit having rendered the light and high flavored wines a necessary of life with me."[2]
Many modern secondary sources have altered the quotation even further; it most frequently appears as "good wine is a necessity of life (for me)." This version dates to at least 1973.[3]
