Category: Pages of History

Homemade Wine as a Way of Life in Europe From Ancient Vineyards to Family Cellars You can read Part Two here… Part 3 Homemade wine survived the Migration Period, the Industrial Revolution, and the great movement of people from the countryside into the cities. It seemed that it would finally give way to bottles from… →

Homemade Wine as a Way of Life in Europe From Ancient Vineyards to Family Cellars You can read Part One here… Part 2 🍷 The Wine of the Poor and the Wine of the Wealthy How a Shared Wine Culture Gradually Divided into Home Production and a Market for Fine Wine In the Middle Ages,… →

Homemade Wine as a Way of Life in Europe From Ancient Vineyards to Family Cellars Part 1 “Wine was not always reserved for celebrations. For a long time, it was simply part of life” 🔎 What Do We Mean by “Homemade Wine”? Today, when we hear the phrase homemade wine, we usually imagine a small… →

“The Case of the Ailing Wine” or how Louis Pasteur found an invisible culprit You can find the previous episode here… Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist who, in the mid-19th century, demonstrated that wine spoilage is caused by microorganisms. His research not only helped save French winemaking but also laid the foundation… →

The Wine That Accompanied a Life The Story of Two Burgundian Pierre Duvaliers—from the 18th to the 21st Century Part 2. The Year 1984 You can read Chapter 1 here… Chapter 2 🍷 Pierre Duvalier, 1984 — Burgundy 🎓 Lyon. Studies When Pierre left to continue his studies in Lyon, Burgundy ceased, for the first… →

The Wine That Accompanied a Life The Story of Two Burgundian Pierre Duvaliers—from the 18th to the 21st Century You can read the first part here… Part 2. The Year 1984 Chapter 1 Two centuries have passed, but the story continues. In 1984, another Pierre Duvalier is born into a different Burgundy—one where life has… →

The Wine That Accompanied a Life The story of two Burgundian Pierre Duvaliers—from the 18th to the 21st century Part I. The Year 1784Chapter 2 Everything changes—except the desire to preserve what feels like part of home. Chapter 1 can be read here… 🏡 Pierre’s Return Pierre returns from military service no longer the boy… →

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… →

A Glass of Brandy Before the Altar: George IV and the Cost of the Crown From a reluctant wedding and a glass of brandy at the altar to the glittering excess of the Regency court. Before the wedding ceremony even began, the Prince of Wales reportedly asked his valet for a glass of brandy.It was… →

Champagne in the Maternity Ward You can read the previous episode here… …A small provincial town in Champagne. Winter, 1923. In the maternity ward—silence. Whitewashed walls, a narrow window. Through it seeps the cold winter light—a grey sky, snow, rooftops with smoking chimneys. On a metal bed lies a woman of about twenty-eight. Her face… →

🎄🥚⚔️ “Christmas Eggnog and a Military Mutiny” You can read the previous episode here… “Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable and procures success to the weak”                                                                              — George Washington Prohibitions in military academies around the world exist to maintain discipline. But sometimes they seem to exist in order to… →

◯ The Birth of the Modern Bottle You can watch the previous episode of the series here… For most of wine’s history, it was sold—and often consumed—directly from barrels, amphorae, wineskins, and other storage or transport vessels. It was drunk young, unstable, often cloudy. The first wine successfully sold in a cylindrical glass bottle was… →

Wine in French Schools Sometimes the past seems not merely different — but almost impossible. Not because it is poorly documented, but because it does not fit within today’s understanding of what is “normal.” French primary and secondary schools in the mid-twentieth century offer one such example: the regular serving of wine at lunchtime—including to… →