The Wine That Accompanied a Life
The story of two Burgundian Pierre Duvaliers—from the 18th to the 21st century
You can view the previous article in this series here…
This is a story of Burgundy, of two men who share the same name across centuries, and of the wine that accompanies their lives. It is not only about wine, but about time, memory, and how meaning changes from one generation to the next.
Part I. The Year 1784
Chapter 1
There are things that accompany a life.
And there is a life that changes their meaning.
🍷 Pierre Duvalier, 1784—A Burgundian Village
Pierre Duvalier was born in a small village in Burgundy, among gentle hills, vineyard-covered slopes, and stone houses with heavy tiled roofs that seemed to huddle together against the winter wind. The bell tower of the parish church could be seen from almost every yard.
His birth was not celebrated with champagne—this was Burgundy after all, not neighboring Champagne—but on the table in the house there was almost certainly a clay jug of local wine: simple Burgundy wine, dark, slightly cloudy, with lively acidity, a wine that still knew nothing of bottles, labels, or long aging.
A few days later Pierre was baptized.
The priest touched his lips with a drop of consecrated wine.
In this way he was included for the first time in the community—and, symbolically, in the wine culture of France.
☝️ No one saw anything unusual in this.
…The House of Pierre Duvalier’s Parents, January 1784
Winter. A stone house. A hearth. A midwife.
Pierre’s father, Jean, walks back and forth across the yard, trying not to interfere, yet not straying too far.
When the first cry is heard—relief. The midwife says simply: “A boy.”
There was most likely no immediate feast.
💡 In the eighteenth century, childbirth remained a medically risky event. Until the mother stabilized and the child had been baptized, celebrating the birth too loudly was considered premature. Caution was part of the culture of that era.
So in the first hours a little wine might be given to the mother—“for “strength and calm,” and also according to the logic of the time: water could be unsafe, while light wine was regarded almost as food. The household wine might also be given to the midwife—for her work—and to the father, to ease the tension.
But at the moment of birth, it was not a celebration for the whole village.
Pierre’s father most likely drank a glass that first night “for his nerves,” another the next day “for the health of his son,” and perhaps a third a week later—“because such a thing has to be marked somehow.”
That was tradition. Wine served a social function—it was almost a public announcement to the community:
— A son has been born to me. The family is growing. The household will endure. I share my harvest with you.
…⛪ The Baptism of Pierre Duvalier—The Next Day
In eighteenth-century France, infants were baptized as soon as possible—often within the first twenty-four hours after birth. The reason was simple and serious: high infant mortality. According to the Catholic understanding of the time, an unbaptized child could not be fully received into the Kingdom of Heaven.
So parents did not delay.
If Pierre had been born during the night, by morning his father or the midwife might already have carried him to the parish church.
It was usually a stone church with cold air inside. The baptismal font stood near the entrance. The priest wore simple liturgical garments. The godparents—often relatives or neighbors—stood nearby.
The name was pronounced aloud: Pierre Duvalier.
The priest touched the water and pronounced the formula in Latin:“Ego te baptizo…”
During the sacrament, the child’s lips were touched with a drop of consecrated wine—symbolically, almost imperceptibly.
The corresponding entry was then written into the parish register. From that moment Pierre existed officially—not only before God, but also before society.
It was the first public act in the life of the new person. And only after it could the family allow themselves to breathe out.
► After the Baptism
When the family returned from the church, the house already felt warmer.
The fire in the hearth had been kept alive by a neighbor—the same woman who had helped the midwife during the night.
The baby sleeps. He has no idea that in the past twelve hours he has already been born, survived, received a name, be entered into the church register, and become the object of his parents’ cautious pride.
Pierre’s father, Jean Duvalier, silently goes down into the cellar. He does not choose the best barrel. The best one is for his son’s wedding—and that is still far away. But he does not draw from the everyday barrel used for the daily table either.
He chooses a better wine, one suitable for a modest celebration—with a rich color and a firm aroma. The birth of a son is a serious event. Especially if it is the first child or a long-awaited boy.
On the table they place bread, a little cheese, a bowl of soup, and a jug of this wine. The midwife receives the first glass. Then the godfather.
Jean pours one for himself as well, but he does not hurry to drink.
— To Pierre, — he says simply, without any grand tone.
No one makes long speeches. No one clinks cups. But on this day the wine is no longer merely part of the meal. It is a sign:
the child is alive, the mother is recovering, the family will continue.
Pierre’s mother drinks a little— diluted, warm.
“For recovery.”
No one argues. No one discusses it. That is simply how things had always been done.
A neighbor, after taking a sip, remarks:
— It was a good harvest last year.
That is the highest form of approval.
The conversation soon returns to the land, to the weather, to taxes. Life does not stop. But on this day there is one more reason in the Duvalier cellar to keep wine.
🤱 Wine and the Nursing Mother
In eighteenth-century thinking, breast milk was believed to be a continuation of the mother’s blood and a reflection of her condition—her nourishment, her calm, her physical balance. A nursing woman was expected to live with moderation, warmth, simple food, and an absence of strong emotional disturbances.
Within this system, wine was not considered dangerous. On the contrary, diluted and taken in small quantities, it was regarded as beneficial—“for strength,” “for appetite,” “for milk.”
A small daily consumption of wine (diluted, one or two cups) was generally considered normal and safe.
If Pierre’s mother drank a little warm wine with her meal, it would have caused neither surprise nor disapproval. Many women did the same. It belonged to custom, and customs were rarely questioned.
Concern was directed not at the drink itself, but at excess. Losing moderation was seen as a disturbance of order. But moderation was part of everyday life, not something people discussed.
Infant mortality was high for many other reasons—infections, diarrhea, malnutrition. At the time it was almost impossible to connect a mother’s light wine consumption with a child’s condition. If Pierre’s mother had refused wine altogether, that might actually have seemed unusual.
Sometimes weak wine could even be safer than water, which in rural areas of the eighteenth century was not always clean. Diluted wine reduced the risk of intestinal infections.
What today might appear to be a risk could then be perceived as a form of sanitary protection.
🍷 A House Where Wine Is Not an Event
Pierre is now a few weeks old.
For him the world consists of his mother’s warmth, the smell of bread, the crackling of firewood, and the rhythm of her heartbeat. He does not yet know that in the cellar beneath his cradle stand barrels of wine.
Wine is present in almost everything: it is added to sauces, drunk with soup, offered to a neighbor, taken to the fields during work.
It is not separated from life. It is part of it.
Sometimes his father, holding his son in his arms, playfully touches the child’s lips with a damp finger dipped in wine.
— So he won’t forget that he was born in Burgundy, — he says.
No one sees anything risky or daring in this. It belongs to the same category of gestures as making the sign of the cross or wishing someone a good night’s sleep.
In these first months of life, Pierre is already surrounded by wine—not as a future drinker, but as a member of the cultural traditions of his family and his society.
He has not yet taken a single conscious sip. But the environment has already been formed. And that matters more than the wine itself.
🍷 The First Diluted Glass
…Pierre is seven years old.
Summer. A long table in the courtyard. The grapes have already filled out, but the harvest is still far away. His father has returned from the fields earlier than usual—it is hot.
Pierre sits between his mother and his godfather. He is no longer an infant and no longer just an observer. He listens to the conversations of the adults, understands more than he did a year ago, and asks questions more often.
On the table are bread, cheese, a bowl of stewed beans, a jug of water, and a jug of wine.
His father pours wine for himself. Then for the godfather. Then for the mother.
Pierre watches closely. His father notices his look. Nothing ceremonial happens. He simply takes another cup, pours water into it, and then adds a little wine—just enough for the water to take on a light pink shade. He places the cup in front of his son.
— You’re already big, — he says. — Try this, but drink slowly.
There is no solemn pause. No “from today you are a man.”
It is simply another step in growing up—as natural as moving from a child’s swaddling shirt to a boy’s shirt.
Pierre tastes it cautiously. The flavor seems strange: astringent, slightly sour, unlike milk or water. He makes a face.
The godfather smiles:
— You’ll understand it and come to like it with time.
No one watches him closely. No one discusses the “harm” or the “benefits” of the process. This is not an act of teaching a child to drink.
It is an act of including him in the tradition of the shared table, of belonging to the surrounding world.
The wine is generously diluted—there is far more water than wine. It is not given every day in full measure, but gradually, depending on age and circumstances.
In this family—as in many peasant households of the eighteenth century—it was believed that a child should become accustomed to wine slowly and with moderation, under supervision.
First as an observer: he watched his father go down to the cellar, saw how the barrel was opened with a wooden tap, how the color and aroma of the drink were checked, how the harvest was discussed—as if one were speaking about the character of a living being.
Then as a helper: carrying a full jug to the table, holding a cup, listening to conversations about the weather, taxes, neighboring vineyards, and the work of the vine.
And only later—as a participant.
Weak wine at the table was not a deviation from the norm.
It was the norm.
A diluted cup signified trust. Wine was never separated from labor or from moderation. One could not drink it without understanding where it came from. Behind every sip stood a season of work, the risk of hail, the fear of frost.
That is why the culture of wine was above all a culture of moderation. Drunkenness was condemned—but not as a sin against sobriety so much as a disturbance of order. A man who lost his measure lost respect.
A young person learned not so much how to drink as how to stop in time. He saw that wine accompanied conversation, warmed the body in winter, united people at the table—but it did not replace work and did not cancel responsibilities.
In this system of life there was no single moment of “entering the world of alcohol.” There was simply growing up—and with it the gradual widening of what was permitted.
Pierre Duvalier grew up not beside prohibition, but beside example. And it was example, rather than instruction, that shaped his relationship with wine.
🍇 Autumn in the Vineyard
A September morning smells of cold earth and sweet juice. The grapes are already dark, heavy, filled with the sun of summer. Pierre is woken earlier than usual.
— Today you’re coming with us, — his father says.
This is not a ceremonial initiation. It is simply the age when a boy can carry a basket without dropping it on the way.
The vines stretch in even rows. Dew glistens on the leaves. The women cut the clusters with knives, the men carry the baskets to the cart. The conversations are quiet—the work requires attention.
At first Pierre is given an easy task: collecting fallen clusters and bringing empty baskets to the pickers. He tries hard. His fingers become sticky with juice. Bees circle nearby. By noon he is more tired than he has been in the entire previous month.
His father notices this and hands him a cup of water. Then, a little later, he adds a little red wine to it.
— Now you’ll understand, — he says.
Pierre takes a sip. The taste no longer seems strange. He senses the sweetness and the astringency differently—through fatigue. And at that moment something important happens: wine ceases to be simply a drink.
It becomes the result of the day.
The Press
When the harvested grapes are brought into the yard, the next stage begins. The clusters are poured into the press. Juice runs down in a thick stream. The smell becomes dense, almost tangible.
Pierre watches as the barrels are filled with young wine.
— This isn’t wine yet, — his father says. — It’s only a promise.
He explains about time, about the fermentation cellar, about caution. About how good wine requires patience. And here the boy understands something for the first time: every sip at the table is not an accident. It is spring pruning, the fear of frost, the heat of summer, the threat of hail, the harvest of autumn, and the winter of waiting.
Without Romanticizing
The work is hard. The back aches. Hands are scratched.
Sometimes the harvest is poor. Sometimes the wine turns sour. Sometimes there are more taxes than joy. But it is through the vineyard that an attitude is formed: wine is not pleasure for the sake of pleasure. It is the result of hard work.
On this day Pierre takes his second important step into the culture of wine:
he begins to understand its price.
🍷 The First Tavern
…Pierre is seventeen.
The tavern stands by the road leading to the neighboring town. A low ceiling, smoke-darkened beams, heavy wooden tables. The smell of smoke, wine, and wet wool.
Pierre had come here before with his father during the day, on business. Today he comes in the evening, with boys his own age. It is neither rebellion nor secrecy. His father knows. At seventeen, a young man already works almost on equal terms with adults.
The tavern keeper nods to him—without surprise. A jug is set on the table. The wine is neither the best nor the worst. Simple, village wine, everyday wine.
Pierre’s cup is filled without dilution. Here something new happens. At the family table wine had been an extension of the family. In the tavern it becomes part of a man’s conversation. Here they discuss taxes, rumors from Paris, the harvest in the neighboring parish, and the army draft. Gradually the visitors laugh louder, argue more heatedly.
Pierre takes a sip and feels that the taste of the wine is familiar—but its meaning is different.
A Test of Measure
In the tavern it is easy to cross the line. Someone drinks faster. Someone boasts about endurance. Someone reddens sooner than the others. Here the young man sees for the first time the difference between the culture of drinking and excess.
One of the older men notices that Pierre pours himself a second cup too quickly and calmly says:
— Slower. Wine is not water, and this is not a contest.
The laughter quiets. Pierre nods. No one gives lectures. But the unspoken rule holds: to lose one’s head is to lose respect.
The Tavern as a School of Society
In eighteenth-century France the tavern was a place for news, for making deals, for recruiting conversations, and for a young man’s entry into adult society. Here Pierre understands that wine is not only hard work and family tradition. It is also a social instrument.
Too sober at the table — you may seem cold. Too drunk—they will say you are unreliable. One must keep balance. And in that balance lies the essence of the era.
That evening Pierre returns home with a light noise in his head — but without shame. His father looks at him attentively, but asks nothing. It is enough that his son stands straight and controls his behavior.
🎖 Pierre Duvalier in Napoleon’s Army
1804. Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed emperor.
In the village people speak both about the glory of France and about the recruitment lists. By that time the army was no longer voluntary but based on mass conscription. For a rural family this meant the loss of working hands, anxiety for the household, and uncertainty for years. So a departure for the army was not so much ceremonial as heavy.
Pierre went to the army not for glory, but because the era demanded it. He was already a young man who knew the taste of earth, labor, and wine.
In the army everything is different. There is no family wine cellar. No familiar jug on the table. There is a campaign flask.
Wine in a Soldier’s Life
In the French army of the early nineteenth century, wine was included in the ration whenever possible. Of course, not always and not in equal quantities—especially during distant campaigns—but in European campaigns it was usually provided when it could be obtained. Sometimes it was diluted wine, sometimes cider, and sometimes whatever could be requisitioned locally.
Wine served several functions at once: sustaining morale, providing calories, helping make water safer to drink, and preserving an element of familiar French daily life. A soldier without wine was a man without a familiar piece of his home and family.
…The First Military Halt
Evening by the fire. Boots are drying. Someone repairs straps. Someone writes a letter. Pierre takes out his flask. He takes a sip. This wine no longer smells like the cellar of his father. It is rougher, sourer, unfamiliar. Yet it still fulfills its role—it brings people together.
One soldier beside him speaks about Provence. Another about Normandy. Each had a different wine at home.
Pierre begins to understand: France is a country of many vineyards. And in the army they all meet.
Without Romanticizing
Wine does not make war easier. It does not completely silence fear, it is not always available, and it may be of poor quality. During long marches the flask empties quickly. In hard and distant campaigns wine may disappear entirely, giving way to harsh reality.
And then Pierre understands its true value—not as a means of intoxication, but as a reminder of peaceful life, of home, of family. Each sip is a brief return to the hearth.
…The Crossing of the Berezina (in the territory of present-day Belarus)
The snow does not fall—it cuts the face. The air is dry and icy. Pierre no longer marks the days. He simply counts his steps. His boots have stiffened with ice. His fingers no longer obey him. The fires barely warm anyone—there is little wood, and the smoke is thick.
The supply wagons have fallen behind. Horses collapse. Men as well.
Someone whispers:
— Soon… the Berezina.
The word sounds like a sentence.
Pierre’s flask has been empty for a long time. During the first weeks of the campaign wine could still be found—requisitioned, exchanged, sometimes even bought. Now there is nothing.
In the Russian villages through which they pass there are no vineyards. No barrels in cellars. No familiar smell of fermentation. There is ice. Smoke. Cold. Fear.
Someone produces vodka taken from an abandoned hut. It burns the throat but does not warm for long, and to a Burgundian its taste is unfamiliar. Pierre takes a swallow and understands immediately: this is not the same. Wine had been a part of home. This is only fire in the throat on a distant, foreign land.
Pierre still takes out his flask again—more from habit than hope. He turns it over. He waits. Not a drop. A thin rim of ice has formed around the neck. He runs his finger along it—the metal does not warm the hand; it burns the skin with cold.
The flask has become as heavy and as useless as a stone. He shakes it once more—a dull, empty sound.
The River
The bridges are being built in haste. Men work heavily in the frost. Shouts, commands, the cracking of ice. Pierre is not thinking about glory now. He is thinking about simple warmth.
And suddenly a strange thought comes to him. He remembers autumn in Burgundy. The smell of ripe grapes. Sticky juice on his fingers. A cup of wine placed on the table by his father. And not even its taste, but its color—deep, dark, calm. For a moment it seems to him that he is holding it in his hand, sensing the familiar aroma of home.
But it is only memory. Reality is entirely different.
A Boundary
For Pierre, the Berezina becomes not an event but a boundary. It shows him a limit—the limit of warmth, of strength, of the familiar order of things. Before it, the world had seemed arranged according to laws one could understand: the vine survives the winter, a son grows into a man, an army returns home. Wine had been part of that order—natural, almost unnoticed.
The world in which he had grown up—with its vineyard, its cellar, and its jug on the table—turned out to be less solid than it had seemed in youth.
On the banks of the Berezina that order collapsed. The cold did not distinguish between ranks or merits. The road ahead did not guarantee a return. The flask that once felt warm and familiar in the hand was now empty.
Wine could not save a man from war. But it belonged to the world where people lived—not merely survived. And he would always remember how easily what seems eternal can disappear.
The Road Continues
The flask was empty, but the road went on. And with it Pierre himself continued—no longer with the certainty of youth, but with the memory of a taste that had once meant home, family, and his native land.
Ahead lay France. And a life that would have to be lived again.
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