Brandy and wine: Madeira, port and French brandy

Where did wine and brandy come from in 1715?

Wine was made in the warm wine-growing countries of Europe, above all France, Spain and Portugal, and on the Atlantic islands that belonged to them: Portuguese Madeira and the Azores, and the Spanish Canary Islands. Britain and its colonies in North America made almost no wine of their own, so nearly all of it was imported.

Brandy is wine that has been distilled, heated so that the alcohol can be collected as a much stronger spirit. France was the great brandy maker of the age. Its Atlantic ports, such as Bordeaux and Nantes, shipped wine and brandy to Northern Europe, to the French islands of the Caribbean and to Africa. France protected its brandy so firmly that it banned imports of rum, which is one reason the French islands sold their molasses to New England instead.

What did the Navigation Acts say about wine and brandy?

The Navigation Acts were English laws meant to keep colonial trade in English hands. One of them, the Staple Act of 1663, said that goods grown or made in Europe could only be brought into the English colonies if they were loaded in England and carried from there in English ships. A merchant in Boston who wanted French brandy or Spanish wine was supposed to buy it through England, where it paid English duties first.

The Act listed a few exceptions. Salt could go straight to the fishing colonies of New England and Newfoundland, and food, horses and servants could come from Scotland and Ireland. The only wines on the list were the wines of Madeira and of the Azores. Wine from the Canaries, from Spain, from Portugal itself and from France was not on it.

Why did American colonists love Madeira wine?

Madeira had two big advantages. The first was the law: because it could sail directly to the colonies, it skipped the long, costly detour through England. The island was also handy, a regular stop for ships heading south and west to catch the trade winds to the Americas.

The second was that it lasted. Many wines spoiled on a long, hot voyage, but Madeira survived the crossing and kept for a long time once it was bought. Wine makers even found that it tasted better after the heat of a ship’s hold. Wine that had sailed to the tropics and back was sold as vinho da roda, “round-trip wine”, and later in the century makers copied the effect by warming wine in heated rooms called estufas. Adding brandy to Madeira to make it stronger also spread during the 1700s, so the Madeira of 1715 was probably lighter than the rich wine sold today.

In the 1700s Madeira became the wine of colonial America, drunk by wealthy families and in country taverns alike. George Washington was ordering it by the pipe from 1759. In 1768 customs officers in Boston seized John Hancock’s sloop Liberty in a dispute over the duty on a cargo of Madeira, a famous clash in the years before the American Revolution.

What was the Methuen Treaty, and how did port become Britain’s wine?

From 1689 to 1713 England and France were almost always at war, and when they were not fighting they were fighting over trade. England banned French wine and brandy at times and taxed them heavily at others, while giving lower rates to Portugal and Spain.

In May 1703 Portugal joined England’s side in the War of the Spanish Succession. On 27 December 1703 the English envoy (ambassador) John Methuen signed a trade treaty with Portugal: English woollen cloth would be let into Portugal, and Portuguese wine would pay a third less duty in England than French wine. Port, a red wine from northern Portugal, took the place of claret, the red wine of Bordeaux, on many English tables. When peace came in 1713, the government tried to reopen normal trade with France, but Parliament voted it down, and the high duties on French wine stayed for many years.

Was French brandy illegal?

Not exactly, and it depended on where and when. In England a law of 1678 banned French wine and brandy until 1685, and trade with France was barred again during the wars that followed. By 1715, with peace, French brandy could be imported legally, but the duty on it was very high.

In the colonies, French brandy was legal only if it had come by way of England and paid its duties there. Brandy shipped straight from France, or bought from the French islands, broke the law.

High taxes made smuggling worth the risk. Brandy was smuggled into Britain all through the 1700s, much of it from Dunkirk, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In the 1720s a brandy merchant was caught bringing in French brandy from Dunkirk and telling customs it was “Flemish”, so that it paid a lower duty. There were too few customs officers to watch every cove.

Why did slave ships carry brandy to West Africa?

Brandy was also part of the Atlantic slave trade. Ships from Nantes, France’s main slave-trading port, sailed for Africa loaded with printed cloth, guns, gunpowder, metal goods and brandy, which they traded for captives who were then carried to Saint-Domingue and the other French islands. English ships carried brandy and rum too. Between 1701 and 1725 ships of all nations forced more than a million Africans onto ships bound across the Atlantic.

Brandy was one trade good among many, and African rulers and merchants set the terms. At Whydah the king controlled foreign trade, and cowrie shells were the payment merchants there preferred. Drink was also used in diplomacy. On the Gold Coast in the late 1600s, Queen Tituba of Agona received brandy from the English Royal African Company and passed it on through her own officials and allies to build support and manage trade. Historians stress that African societies fitted imported drink into their own customs rather than simply taking what Europeans offered.