Wine

Beginnings of Aged Wine

Georgian England - first to appreciate aged wine. Bottling techniques had advance such that connoisseurs could stock a wine cellar and let bottles of wine age. By the early 1760s, the London publisher Robert Dodsley was offering for sale a cellar-record book replete with sections for the different types of wine that a respectable household would likely have: Burgundy, Champagne, Claret, Madeira, Port, Rhenish (Rhine wine), and Sack. In contrast, people in wine producing countries drank their native wines almost exclusively. Winemakers in France, Spain, Germany and Portugal vied for the English market's attention. Before this, few people kept wine in their home. Wine was kept in casks and once the stopper was removed, the wine began to spoil.

Champagne

By 1800, fizzy champagnes, fortified wines such as Port and Madeira and sweet dessert wines fashioned from fresh rather than raisined grapes were offering drinkers wholly new experiences.

Dom Pierre Perignon spent much of his life trying to modernize the production of still wine. Champagne had a tendency to produce bubbles which were originally thought of as a defect. Sparking Champagne first became all the rage in Restoration London, first introduced in the 1660s. Champagne was imported in casks, then bottled until the bubbles were produced. In the early 1700s, most champagne was produced without bubbles; by the middle of the century the industry had changed and was handling primarily bottled, sparkling wines.

These 18th century wines were not full-formed champagnes in the contemporary sense. Vintners were not able to completely control the effervescence until around 1870.

Fortified Wines

The first fortified wine was probably made in the mid-sixteenth century. At some point soon after, during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603), Spanish wine producers realized Sherry could be fortified. At this stage, fortification may have been an easy way to produce a wine with 15.3 percent a.b.v. A little more than a century later, experiments for fortifying port took place.

The roots of Madeira's wine industry date back to the Age of Exploration, when Madeira was a regular port of call for ships travelling to the New World and East Indies. By the 16th century, records indicate that a well-established wine industry on the island supplied these ships with wine for the long voyages across the sea. The earliest examples of Madeira were unfortified and had the habit of spoiling at sea. However, following the example of Port, a small amount of distilled alcohol made from cane sugar was added to stabilize the wine by boosting the alcohol content (the modern process of fortification using brandy did not become widespread till the 18th century). The Dutch East India Company became a regular customer, picking up large (112 gal/423 l) casks of wine known as "pipes" for their voyages to India.

The intense heat and constant movement of the ships had a transforming effect on the wine, as discovered by Madeira producers when one shipment was returned to the island after a long trip. The customer was found to prefer the taste of this style of wine, and Madeira labeled as vinho da roda (wines that have made a round trip) became very popular. Madeira producers found that aging the wine on long sea voyages was very costly, so began to develop methods on the island to produce the same aged and heated style. They began storing the wines on trestles at the winery or in special rooms known as estufas, where the heat of island sun would age the wine.

The 18th century was the "golden age" for Madeira. The wine's popularity extended from the American colonies and Brazil in the New World to Great Britain, Russia, and Northern Africa. The American colonies, in particular, were enthusiastic customers, consuming as much as a quarter of all wine produced on the island each year.

Port began the 18th century as a harsh table wine known as "black-strap." By the end of the century it was a mature, fortified wine. Port was initially made to satisfy the English tavern market when French wines were banned because of war. Course and cheap, it was a substitute for Claret. Production evolved so that brandy was added giving it sweetness and potency as a wholly new type of drink. A treaty in 1703 allowed Portuguese wine to be imported at 1/3 the normal duty of other wines. So during the 18th century, Portuguese wines flooded the English market and were for the most part cheap. Brandy was added to stabilize the wine for the journey, buy it did not become standard practice until the early 1800s to add the brandy before fermentation completed, thus creating a refined port.

The practice of adding distilled spirit to young wine early in the 18th century became a method of making some otherwise disagreeable wines more palatable. This took place in northwestern Italy and a new beverage called Vermouth was produced. Marsala wine was made using fortification in 1773 in Sicily. Madeira came before Sherry near the end of the 17th century. It was a raisined Canary wine that became better after fortification and a trip in a ship and connoisseurs decided they wanted wine that had crossed the equator.

Fortified Sherry evolved from Sack. Spirits were also added to Sherry to help the wine from spoiling during long transports. Only in the early 19th century did vintners deliberately start aging their wines. Some were made in a sweet style, others in a dry style. By mid-century 40% of all wine imported into England were sherries. Also see Sack, an earlier form of Sherry.

New Sweet Wines

A different style of sweet wine also began to arise during the Enlightenment at roughly the same time in southwestern France, the German Rhineland, and northeastern Hungary. When grapes start to ripen, they may develop Botrytis cinerea, a mold that sucks the moisture out of the grape leaving it with a honey-like flavor. Tokaji is made from these grapes in Hungary starting in about 1650. In Germany, the mold was identified around 1676 and by the middle of the next century, reports began circulating around about a special wine made with special grapes. Riesling. Some accounts date the French Sauterne to the 1750s. Thomas Jefferson delighted in the Sauternes while visiting there.

A huge chasm thus developed in the 18th and 19th centuries between the new fine wines and the old-fashioned ones drank by the poor. The markets for both type of wines was entirely different. The poor drank very cheap, thin, sour wine from local vineyards. The idea of taste had to change from a wholly physical one to one with an intellectual component.