In 2008, Robert Parker, whose 100-point wine rating system is an industry standard, insured his nose for $1 million.

While showing off a 1787 Chateau Margaux once owned by Thomas Jefferson at a wine event, a merchant bumped a serving tray, cracked the bottle, and felt 80% of its contents trickle down his leg. Insurers paid $225,000, 43% of the asking price.

Spyridon Louis won the first modern Olympic marathon at the 1896 Summer Games in Greece after stopping midway, in the town of Pikermi, for a glass of cognac.

For decades, fountains have overflowed with wine at a grape festival near Rome each year—with one exception. In 2008, instead of running to the fountains, wine was accidentally channeled into local homes.

A Japanese News team gave an all-girl air band an "herbal wine with medicinal properties." After the girls called it "really good" and "easy to drink," they revealed it to be ttongsul, a traditional Korean quaff containing fermented human feces.

Russian Tzar Peter the Great had his first shot of whiskey at the Old Bushmills Distillery. "Visited Ireland," he later wrote, "and tasted one of the most tasteful wine I ever tasted."

"You don't hold it at the top or at the bottom but in the middle," comedian Pat Paulsen explained of the fine wine he started producing, "so the paper bag doesn't fall off."

Disgusted by Donald Trump, a sommelier in Charlottesville, Virginia, stopped serving Trump wines. "Now that the label talks so loudly," she said, "what's in the bottle has lost its voice."

At a restaurant meeting with German record execs, Ozzy Osbourne got drunk, jumped on the table, kissed an executive on the lips, dipped the "family jewels" in his wine, and peed in the carafe.

When Bordeaux University enologist Frederic Brochet asked wine experts to describe two wines whose labels indicated a Grand cru classé and a cheap table wine, they loved the "Grand cru" and loathed the other. But Brochet had filled both bottles with a third, middling wine.