Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Professions/Wine Production and Trade
The upper classes in seventeenth-century England were “positively addicted” to luxury goods, including wine.[1] Although there had been about 38 vineyards operating in England at the time of the Conquest and during the medieval warm period, the English climate did not suit grapes as a rule. [2] Most wines had to be imported from southern European countries.[3] Some of the most popular imports were sherry from Andalusia, port from Portugal, and wines from Madeira. [4] The wine trade became even more profitable during the Restoration period, when a French expatriate named Charles de Saint-Évremond introduced champagne to the court of Charles II. During the period of Louis XIV’s trade wars in the late seventeenth century, the Grand Alliance, which included England, imposed “prohibitive tariffs and outright embargoes on French wines.”[5] French wineries suffered, but Dutch and English wine merchants developed new means of producing wines and the industry survived.[6]
International trade, including the wine trade, was expanding during the seventeenth century. Opportunities emerged for Englishmen to join charter companies as merchants or to invest capital in trade.[7] In the 1640s, English merchants made an average rate of about 20% return on investment.[8]
- ↑ Thomas Leng, “Commercial Conflict and Regulation in the Discourse of Trade in Seventeenth Century England,” The Historical Journal 48, no. 4 (Dec. 2005), 951.
- ↑ "Wine Production and Trade," The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Ed Robert E. Bjork. Oxford University Press, 2010. <http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t303.e6111>
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Harvey Smith, "Wine and Wineries," The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History. Ed. Joel Mokyr. Oxford University Press, 2003. <http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t168.e0800>
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Richard Grassby, “The Rate of Profit in Seventeenth-Century England, The English Historical Review 84, no. 333 (Oct., 1969), 726. JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/563418. Accessed February 22, 2012.