克林頓在自傳中說自己的母親

It was vintage mother.

該怎么翻呢

My comments:

Vintage originally is term in wine making, descriptive of a good quality wine made in a particular year.

What makes the wine particular, of course, is the grape. In a normal year, when grapes of average quality was harvested, wine makers may mix it up with juices from another year in order to produce a wine that tastes tolerably nice.

In a year of good harvest, however, say 2014, later this year, wine makers won’t mix it up with crops of other years. They will instead produce a wine labeled vintage 2014, meaning it’s made from grapes of 2014 and 2014 only. In other words, and it shows all the typical good qualities of the crop of 2014.

Hence, people also talk of other things as vintage, such as a vintage performance, a particularly good performance, that is, demonstrating all the typical qualities of a particular artist or sportsman or what have you.

It was vintage mother?

In other words, it’s typical of her, in a good way.

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本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.