Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre

Published by University of California Press 2022

Imperial Wine

How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520975088

Overview
Contents

About this book

A fascinating deep dive into the colonial roots of the global wine industry. Imperial Wine is a bold, rigorous history of Britain’s surprising role in creating the wine industries of Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Here, historian Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre bridges the genres of global commodity history and imperial history, presenting provocative new research in an accessible narrative. This is the first book to argue that today’s global wine industry exists as a result of settler colonialism and that imperialism was central, not incidental, to viticulture in the British colonies.

Wineries were established almost immediately after the colonization of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand as part of a civilizing mission: tidy vines, heavy with fruit, were symbolic of Britain’s subordination of foreign lands. Economically and culturally, nineteenth-century settler winemakers saw the British market as paramount. However, British drinkers were apathetic towards what they pejoratively called "colonial wine." The tables only began to turn after the First World War, when colonial wines were marketed as cheap and patriotic and started to find their niche among middle- and working-class British drinkers. This trend, combined with social and cultural shifts after the Second World War, laid the foundation for the New World revolution in the 1980s, making Britain into a confirmed country of wine-drinkers and a massive market for New World wines. These New World producers may have only received critical acclaim in the late twentieth century, but Imperial Wine shows that they had spent centuries wooing, and indeed manufacturing, a British market for inexpensive colonial wines. This book is sure to satisfy any curious reader who savors the complex stories behind this commodity chain.

Author / Editor information

Regan-LefebvreJennifer:

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre is Associate Professor of History at Trinity College, Connecticut, and author of Cosmopolitan Nationalism in the Victorian Empire. In 2019 she was named one of the “Future 50” of wine by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust and the International Wine and Spirit Competition.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part one. Origins, c. 1650–1830
1 Writing about Wine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
2 Why Britain? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
3 Dutch Courage: The First Wine at the Cape Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
4 First Fleet, First Flight: Creating Australian Vineyards Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	40
5 Astonished to See the Fruit: New Zealand’s First Grapes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
Part two. Growth, c. 1830–1910
6 Cheap and Wholesome: Cape Producers and British Tariffs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
7 Echunga Hock: Colonial Wines of the Nineteenth Century Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
8 Have You Any Colonial Wine? Australian Producers and British Tariffs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	88
9 Planting and Pruning: Working the Colonial Vineyard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
10 Sulphur! Sulphur!! Sulphur!!! Phylloxera and Other Pests Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
11 Served Chilled: British Consumers in the Victorian Era Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
12 From Melbourne to Madras: Wine in India, Cyprus, Malta, and Canada Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
Part three. Market, c. 1910–1950
13 Plonk! Colonial Wine and the First World War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
14 Fortification: The Dominions and the Interwar Period Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
15 Crude Potions: The British Market for Empire Wines Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	180
16 Doodle Bugs Destroyed Our Cellar: Wine in the Second World War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
Part four. Conquest, c. 1950–2020
17 And a Glass of Wine: Colonial Wines in the Postwar Society Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
18 Good Fighting Wine: Colonial Wines Battle Back Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
19 All Bar One: The New World Conquers the British Market Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Appendix: Notes about Measurements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 342
Keywords: history of British colonial wine industry; global history of wine; New World wines; Commonwealth of Nations; grape varietals; viticulture; vineyards; colonization; colony; imperialism; wine production and consumption

eBook

Published: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 9780520975088