“White wine is what you drink before you drink red wine”

“White wine is what you drink before you drink red wine” is a wine saying of uncertain authorship. “White wine is what you drink until they bring the red” was cited in print in 1995. “White wine is what you drink before you drink red wine” was cited in 1998, when it was credited to winemaker Bruno Prats.
 
“The first duty of wine is to be red” is another somewhat related wine saying.
 
   
Google News Archive
21 May 1995, The Sunday Gazette (Schenectady, NY), “On Wine” Fruit of the vine still inspires poets, politicians and dreamers” by Dan Berger (Los Angeles Times), pg. G9, col. 3:
Some wise sayings turn up in other forms. For example, wine author Leon Adams, 90, is reported to have said: “All wine would be red if it could.”
 
That, however, is merely a variation on a theme. One anonymous line goes, “If it’s not red, it’s not wine.” Another: “White wine is what you drink until they bring the red.”
   
Google Books
Decanter
Decanter Magazine Limited
1998
Pg. 19:
Bruno Prats once memorably said ‘white wine is what you drink before you drink red wine’.
 
Wine Berserkers
Re: hi guys!!!
Post #2 Postby Jay Winton » November 29th 2012, 8:32am
Welcome to my Nightmare and WB! I buy wine locally (Washington DC area) and online. I drink both old and new world wines. My cellar is almost all red as I subscribe to the Bruno Prats (google him) theory: white wine is what you drink before red wine. Others here will heartily disagree.
 
Wine Press Northwest
The Great White North
BY DAN BERGER
December 20, 2013
For decades, red wine was considered the best wine in the world. Phrases like “All wine would be red if it could,” and “White wine is what you drink until someone opens a red” were spoken more in truth than jest. Even today, those who rate wines consider that the greatest wines in the world are red.
 
BQ, Business Quarter (UK)
Friday 5 Dec 2014 12:30
Worth the experiment
By Steve Dyson
(...)
However, at the beginning of winter it complemented the pan-fried haddock my wife had prepared. As a philistine who adheres to the old adage that white wine is simply something you drink before you start on the red, I actually enjoyed it and would definitely drink it again.