The Politics of Wine in 18th-century England

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

After the upheavals of 1688, England’s shifting social order needed new ways to define itself. A taste for fine claret became one such marker of wealth and power, as Charles Ludington explains.

An anonymous satire on the Excise Bill 1733 shows the Prime Minister Robert Wapole seated astride a wine barrel. His government's taxes on wine and tobacco were seen as an infringement of British liberty; the lion is constrained by continental clogs. British MuseumPolitical authority needs many props and in early 18th-century England claret was among them. Wine was symbolic of both the court and the church: the former because of its heavy use by the aristocracy and its importance as a source of royal revenue; the latter due to its central role in the Eucharist. It is not surprising therefore that claret (red wine from Bordeaux), the most widely consumed wine in England since the 12th-century, became a symbol of the Tory party in the late 17th century, as it stood for both a powerful monarch and a strong Anglican Church. What is surprising, however, is that the most conspicuous consumers of claret in early 18th-century England were not Tories but wealthy and powerful Whigs. This irony raises the question of why prominent Whigs, favoured since the ‘Glorious Revolution’, drank a wine whose consumption they condemned on a popular level as being antithetical to England’s national interest. Were prominent Whigs hypocrites, or ‘Tom Doubles’, as the Tory economist Charles Davenant mockingly called them? Indeed, how could men who denounced trade with France drink so much fancy French wine themselves?

To explain how claret became the preferred wine of politically powerful Whigs in the early 18th century it is first necessary to establish the different types of claret available on the English market. On the one hand there was a traditional, haphazardly made, generic variety of claret that had probably changed little since the Middle Ages and dominated the English market until the late 17th century. On the other hand there was a new type of luxury claret, which was carefully produced, discernibly superior in taste and expensive because of both high production costs in France and the high import tariffs that were introduced in England in the 1690s. Wealthy Whig consumers drew a clear distinction between this ‘New French Claret’, which only a few could afford, and traditional claret, which, prior to the tariff hikes, was an inexpensive and popular wine. So while luxury claret was permissible in elite Whig minds because high cost and low production levels precluded large-scale importation, traditional claret had to be discouraged through embargoes and exorbitant customs duties, lest English tavern-goers drink away the nation’s economic health by sending too much precious coin to France.

Tories considered the distinction between types of claret to be blatant hypocrisy. To Whigs it was no such thing. Not only was drinking luxury claret perfectly permissible among Whig party leaders, it was essential. This was because the taste for luxury claret helped to confirm the aesthetic sensibilities and, therefore, moral credentials of the post-1688 political elite. Such confirmation was especially critical for Whig leaders, who sometimes came from gentry or commercial backgrounds. Because their political legitimacy did not necessarily spring from a deep well of aristocratic inheritance, they had to ground it in some other criterion and that was aesthetic appreciation. They had to have good taste. One of the many ways that the post-1688 elite could express their good taste was by drinking and discussing fine wines. Among fine wines, luxury claret was clearly the favourite.

Read the full text of this article in the current issue of History Today, which is out now in newsstands and on the digital edition for iPad, Android tablet or Kindle Fire.