Want Wine from the 1860's?

[Guy Gane III]

Here is an article that I saw yesterday in the magazine, "Robb Report" and that I found online today.

http://www.robbreport.com/Articles/Leisure/Wine-Spirits/21-Ultimate-Gifts-Fine-Wine-Fine-Line.asp

I wonder if any of this stuff made it into the bellies of the officers or soldiers back when it was (affordably) available. :sarcastic

Cheers!

[Watchdog]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

The latest issue of The Watchdog contains an article (in color) by Eric Bizet on French wine bottles and bottle labels (appropriate to the 1850-1875 time period). The article gives instructions for ordering a CD with full size labels (in color). It is the WINTER 2007 (15.1) issue and is available for $4 (The Watchdog, PO BOX 1675, Warren, MI 48090-1675).

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

Indubitably. Although G. A. Sala fails to note sauternes, he does mention the chief sutler of the AoP at Brandy Station having, in the winter of '63-'64: "champagne of the very finest brands, and clarets of the very choicest vintages to dispose of to discreet purchasers; but of these, and of his rare old cognacs, superior London Dock gins, and curious whiskies, he makes no ostentatious display."

My Diary in America in the Midst of War
George Augustus Sala, London, Tinsely Brothers, 1865

Some years ago, for Valentine's Day, I purchased a half-bottle of Chateau d'Yquem that set me back over $100. On the whole, though I enjoyed my share, I think an Australian botrytis-semillon makes an adequate field substitute at perhaps a tenth the cost.

For officers only, of course.

[Charles Heath]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

The menu posted on the wall across from the mule bones in the Steamboat Arabia museum offers a nice snapshot of wines available in 1856. That wonderful info was posted a while back, and lost in one of the many crashes.

When David Cubbison of the White Star Saloon surfaces from time to time, he has a good working knowledge of what is available today in terms of a suitable substitute for products of the 1850s-1860s. Some items are still made. Much to the satisfaction of my bent for E. A. Poe, he had a nice sampling of amontillado, which is really just a dry sherry, but it makes a feller want to pick up a trowel and hawk for some reason.

If we could only get a really good absinthe and/or laudenum....

[riptailedroarer]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

[QUOTE=

If we could only get a really good absinthe and/or laudenum....[/QUOTE]

James Horrocks wrote from Ringold Barracks, Texas, Aug. 23rd. 1865. " At the presant moment I have a bottle of French Absinthe and half-a-dozen bottles of Claret in my tent".

From " My Dear Parents, an Englishmans letters home from thr American civil war" A.S.Lewis Ed.

You can now get Absinthe here in the UK, but i don't know how good it is

[Hank Trent]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

Something that was way popular in the 1860s, that you don't see much mention of today, is Catawba Wine.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Charles Heath]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

If only Longfellow was a member of the AC Forum:

"Catawba Wine

This song of mine
Is a Song of the Vine,
To be sung by the glowing embers
Of wayside inns,
When the rain begins
To darken the drear Novembers.

It is not a song
Of the Scuppernong,
From warm Carolinian valleys,
Nor the Isabel
And the Muscadel
That bask in our garden alleys.

Nor the red Mustang,
Whose clusters hang
O'er the waves of the Colorado,
And the fiery flood
Of whose purple blood
Has a dash of Spanish bravado.

For richest and best
Is the wine of the West,
That grows by the Beautiful River;
Whose sweet perfume
Fills all the room
With a benison on the giver.

And as hollow trees
Are the haunts of bees,
Forever going and coming;
So this crystal hive
Is all alive
With a swarming and buzzing and humming.

Very good in its way
Is the Verzenay,
Or the Sillery soft and creamy;
But Catawba wine
Has a taste more divine,
More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.

There grows no vine
By the haunted Rhine,
By Danube or Guadalquivir,
Nor on island or cape,
That bears such a grape
As grows by the Beautiful River.

Drugged is their juice
For foreign use,
When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
To rack our brains
With the fever pains,
That have driven the Old World frantic.

To the sewers and sinks
With all such drinks,
And after them tumble the mixer;
For a poison malign
Is such Borgia wine,
Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.

While pure as a spring
Is the wine I sing,
And to praise it, one needs but name it;
For Catawba wine
Has need of no sign,
No tavern-bush to proclaim it.

And this Song of the Vine,
This greeting of mine,
The winds and the birds shall deliver
To the Queen of the West,
In her garlands dressed,
On the banks of the Beautiful River."

Mid-1850s, methinks.

[ephraim_zook]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

These folks are about 4 miles from me. We know each other as neighbors, parishoners and of course, vintner / customer.

http://www.cherryvalleyvineyards.com/Catawba.htm

They do ship (full cases only) if you decide you can't live without catawba.
Now I probably blew it. They aren't an Approved Vendor.

Ron Myzie

[BobSullivanPress]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

Hello,

I know of another vendor who carries a CD with wine and liquor labels on it, full size and in color. ;)

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

While the Taylor Wine Company only goes back to the 1880s they made, and continue to make, a nice Catawba.

In Virginia, Horton Vineyards makes a wine called the Norton from a native grape of the Catawba family.

And there's always scuppernong, which used to be available right alongside Boone's Farm in local supermarkets.

My father made a batch of scuppernong once from grapes we harvested from a friend's lot in, of all places, Alexandria. Dad pressed the juice out, filtered it through layers of cheesecloth, saturated it with sugar, then left it to ferment in bottles standing open on his workbench in the basement. Over the next few weeks the dregs foamed out the necks. Finally he corked it.

Oenophiles might not have appreciated it, but I have very fond memories of that wine. I wasn't yet old enough to buy it at the store, but I snuck a few of dad's bottles out on dates with my then-girlfriend, now-wife. Good times.

Bob, looks like you have some wine labels we can use...

[Linkstrap]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

The menu posted on the wall across from the mule bones in the Steamboat Arabia museum offers a nice snapshot of wines available in 1856. That wonderful info was posted a while back, and lost in one of the many crashes.

I saw that menu when I visited the Arabia museum recently. It's from the Steamboat Clara, and is dated Saturday May 5th, 1852. I've transcribed the wine list below:

WINE LIST AT THE BAR

MADEIRA

Oleiveira.......................$1.50
Old Reserve...................2.00
Bacchus, old and pure,...2.00
Prince Albert, very fine....3.00

SHERRY

Lobo, Pale....................1.50
Do, 1846..................1.50
Yriato, pale, delicate.......2.00
Harmony, Pale...............2.50

PORT

London Dock,.................2.00
Brazil,............................2.50

CHAMPAGNE

Heidsick, quarts,............2.25
Do pints,....................1.25
Irroy Cabinet Wine, .........2.00
Do do do pints, ..........1.25

DOMESTIC

Longworth's Sparkling Catawba......$2.00
Do do pints,...................1.00
Howard, March & Co. south side, ....2.50

CLARET

Table Claret, ............................ .75
St. Julien,.................................1.00
St. Emillion, 1844......................1.25
Haut Talleur .............................2.00

HOCK

Ruddesheimer, ..........................2.50

MALT LIQUORS

London Porter, quarts, ................ .50
Do do pints, .......................... .31
Tennent’s Scotch Ale, ………. .50
Do do pints, .......................... .31
Pittsburgh Ale and Porter, .......... .25

Gentlemen ordering Wine from the Bar without designating the kind or price, will be
furnished with Madeira at two dollars per bottle.

[Tucker49th]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

And there's always scuppernong, which used to be available right alongside Boone's Farm in local supermarkets.

Duplin vineyards out of North Carolina is bottling a scuppernong.It is still being placed very close to Boones Farm.

[Charles Heath]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

Jim,

OUTSTANDING!

And mega thanks for the correction on the boat and the date of the menu.

[Linkstrap]

Re: Want Wine from the 1860's?

Charles,

My pleasure sir.

That menu was just one of the many exhibits that totally blew me away at the Arabia Steamboat Museum! We spent a hugely enjoyable day there, and I look forward to going back again asap.