Note 275 — Chapter XVI · FOOD. (Liquid.)

The war with France made the French wines somewhat scarcer than they would otherwise have been, and opened a trade for wines from other countries; still the number of prizes taken, laden with clarets, etc., and the efforts of smugglers, kept the market pretty well supplied. The wines seem to have been good, although the Spanish and Portuguese wines were fortified with 'Stum,' a fact well known, especially as to its effects: 'get drunk with Stum'd wine.'[275] The French wines were very numerous—some even unknown to us by their names—comprising Champagne, Burgundy, Frontiniac, Muscat, Anjou, Bouvrie (? Vouvray), Bayonne, Obrian (Hautbrion), Pontack, Claret, Bomas (? Pomard), High Priniac (Preignac), La Fitt, Margouze (Margeaux), La Tour, Graves, Cahorze, Blacart, Monson, Hermitage, Langoon, Bosmes (? Beaumes), Macco (? Macon), Languedoc, and Cap Breton clarets. Their prices were various: ordinary clarets from the wood 4s. to 6s. per gallon; good bottled clarets from 3s. or 4s. to 10s. a bottle. Champagne came over in baskets or hampers containing ten dozen to two hundred bottles per basket, and was sold retail about 8s. a bottle. Good Burgundy cost 7s. a bottle, but these prices varied, as they do now, with the quality.