This volume, first published in French in 1936, extols the many joys and benefits of wine. Wine drinkers should take pleasure in Gaston Derys's quaint appreciation of the grape, and art lovers can admire Raoul Dufy's joyful watercolours. Reflecting the exuberance and lan of an earlier day, Derys takes us back to a time when the doctor's favoured prescription was an amiable glass of wine. In Derys's ode to wine, here translated into English, we discover that the medicinal and therapeutic uses of wine are many: it assists in fighting typhoid, infant sicknesses, and diabetes; it exerts a positive effect on one's character, beauty, and creativity; and it lends a fortifying power to athletes and soldiers. Supported by the comments of French doctors as well as Dufy's beautifully reproduced paintings, Derys's argument to raise a glass of wine becomes pleasantly irrefutable.

Author Biography

Gaston Derys, also known as Gaston Columb, was a prolific French writer in the 1920s and 1930s. He was an associate director of the Paris Museum of Design. The French painter and designer Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) was born in Le Havre and trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Often associated with Fauvism, he is known for his vivacious use of colour in compositions that seem intended solely to please and entertain. Paul Lukacs is a wine columnist for the Washington Times and Washingtonian magazine. He is author of American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine and chairman of the English Department at Loyola College. Benjamin Ivry is a New York-based writer on the arts, a broadcaster and lecturer, and the translator of Albert Camus: A Life. He was cultural correspondent in Paris for such periodicals as Newsweek and The Economist for nine years.