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Wine has always been considered good for the health. Hippocrates, Greek father of modern medicine, considered that “wine is an appropriate article for mankind, both for the healthy body and for the ailing man.” In the 13th century, Arnaud de Villeneuve was happy to observe that “wine is marvelous for melancholics, choleric and cardiac cases, and for those with liver, bladder, circulation and especially artery problems. It relieves brutal rises in temperature.”

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2. In his Birth of Saint John the Baptist, fashionably painted in a contemporary setting, Domenico Ghirlandaio shows that young mothers were given wine after childbirth.  The Renaissance art historian and painter Giorgio Vasari describes the work in his famous Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, considered the first modern European art history book: “While Saint Elizabeth is in bed being visited by neighbours, the wet-nurse feeding the child, a woman gaily asks to hold him, to show to the others the fruit of Elizabeth’s old age. We can see a pretty country girl bringing in fruit and wine, according to Florentine custom.” The wine was supposed to replace lost blood and cleanse organs damaged by childbirth. This practice lasted until the 19th century.

 

In Switzerland, in the Valais region, the ‘cure’ continued until the ‘relevailles’ ceremony, a Catholic blessing given to new mothers by a priest. A kind of purification act, it was derived from a Jewish custom whereby mothers would come to the temple forty days after giving birth to a son (eighty days for a daughter).

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5. Henri d’Albret wanted his daughter to produce a male heir. In line with tradition, The Birth of Henri IV shows the future French king being placed into his grandfather’s arms and presented to the Court. One of the courtesans is shown holding a tray with a small bottle of Jurançon wine and a clove of garlic. He takes the baby into his chamber, rubbing the garlic against the newborn’s lips and making him breathe in the wine.

The ‘Béarnaise baptism’ was a widespread tradition ; the wine was thought to prevent illness and the garlic was believed to keep away evil spirits. This type of blessing at royal births lasted for centuries.

 

6. At the start of the 19th century, wine was considered “a tonic, a very powerful cordial” (Littré, 1801). In his Self-Portrait with Doctor Arrieta, a gravely ill Goya takes a remedy from his friend. It appears to be a glass of wine, probably sherry.

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7. By 1863, the French wine trade was suffering badly from an outbreak of disease in the crop. The English complained to Napoleon III, who tasked Louis Pasteur with investigating the problem. A specialist in the processes of fermentation and putrefaction, Pasteur moved his laboratory to Arbois, in the wine-producing Jura region. He shared his conclusions with the Académie des Sciences in 1865, affirming that “wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.” Pasteur’s report was published by the Imperial Press in 1866, under the title of Studies on Wine. Until recently, wine was often prescribed by medical professionals.

 

8. It is for this reason that we can see a litre of white wine alongside a carafe of water and a phial of medicine on the nightstand of Félix Valloton’s The Patient. She is Valloton’s mistress, who suffered from severe migraines.

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9. Gaston Derys’ book My Doctor, Wine?* extols the many joys and benefits of wine through comments of French doctors*. Many watercolours by Raoul Dufy are used to illustrate this defence of wine as remedy. Here we are in the hospital. A nursing sister of yesteryear enters the flower-filled room carrying a tray, on which is placed a bottle of champagne. Too good to be true? The painting features in a chapter describing the benefits of wine in convalescence.

A professor said: "Many patients, convalescents, and sufferers from exhaustion who stuff themselves with pills, powders, and tablets would find an old Bordeaux to be a faster remedy to recuperate their strength." In another chapter, several doctors were interviewed about obesity. One of them wrote that "wine is a treatment for obesity...  Water tends to thicken the flesh. Indeed, fat is formed and intervenes in water drinkers, to neutralize the poisons deriving from food that are not destroyed by internal secretions... The wine augments the body's defences, allowing a stronger resistance to autointoxication, depression, and obesity." !**

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* Published in English by Yale University Press, 2003 (French text originally published in 1936, during the viticulture crisis). Gaston Derys is a pseudonym for Gaston Colomb, who, under many aliases, was a prolific writer and well-known French gastronome.

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** Today, the discussion has become more precise and scientific. But is it any less controversial? A former hospital practitioner has not only declared red wine an effective protection against cardiovascular disease – adding that abstinence is actually harmful – but also that it helps to prevent arteriosclerosis, being a powerful antioxidant and vasodilator. Red wine is said to be especially good for the circulation: lab tests have shown the polyphenol extracts of red wine may work in cases where prescription anticoagulants have little effect. It is also thought, among other things, to combat hypertension and to reduce damage to the myocardium and aorta by extending the life of the heart and arteries’ muscle cells. Regular, moderate red wine consumption is linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Last but not least, as red wine allows for longer cell life, it even possesses ‘anti-cancer properties’! Too good to be true? Judge for yourself: just remember that, as these very doctors might say, alcohol is to be enjoyed in moderation…