La Maison de Balzac presents the exhibition De la vigne au verre. Le vin chez Balzac. Through more than 80 works and objects (paintings, prints, posters, winemaking equipment, and tableware), the exhibition highlights Balzac's reflection on viticulture and on the place of wine in the French art of living, from everyday moments to great occasions.
In the 19th century, wine, like bread, was a pillar of the diet. A symbol of quality of life, it was also seen as a public health issue. At the same time, the expansion of the vineyards was accompanied by major technical and commercial innovations, making wine a vector of wealth. Balzac offers a multifaceted reading of it, by turns economic, sociological and artistic, without ever adopting a moralising stance, through a wide variety of literary forms: brief journalistic essays such as the Traité desexcitants modernes, novels largely devoted to the subject (L'Illustre Gaudissart, Eugénie Grandet), evocations in passing (La Muse du département, Illusions perdues, La Rabouilleuse…), correspondence with his friends, etc.