A non-political political wine post
Which British politician ran the Norwegian alcohol monopoly? Who was the first Champagne Socialist? Which Prime Minister personally intervened in a dispute over Communion Wine? And a plea.
There’s no Wine Marketing Masterclass this week. There’s a British election, which demands our attention.
The oenological is political
I’m often asked to comment on wine’s connection to politics. Many of the stories are well know. Yes, Pitt the Younger drank three bottles of Port a day. But William Hague (his biographer) points out it was less than you’d imagine because they were smaller and less potent. (Lord) Hague himself once claimed to have drunk 14 pints of beer, and says he still has three pints and a glass of wine every evening. Which is not that far off the amount of alcohol Pitt would have got through.
The first Prime Minister Robert Walpole loved Madeira, as did a slew of politicians in the USA. As it’s Independence Day we must note that the Declaration of Independence was toasted with Madeira, and was a favourite of favorite of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.
Ted Heath - the UK’s grumpiest Prime Minister loved Port. Although he was (not surprisingly) rather snobbish about it. Churchill enjoyed port, and claret, and everything in between And was reckoned to have drunk 42,000 bottles of Champagne in his lifetime. This is generally regarded as heroic. While Tony Blair drank half a bottle of wine a night while in office and people worried he was an alcoholic. Boris Johnson’s favourite wine is the same as Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex - Tignanello. Although when asked to name it he said…
“Erm … ahh… Oh god. Wait a mo, wait a mo, wait a mo, wait a mo, wait a mo. It’s absolutely amazing. Bugger bugger bugger. It’s gone completely out of my head. It’s Italian. Wait — I’m going to find it for you.
“It’s not tempranillo. But it’s some word that ends in ‘illo.’ Hang on. Not pillow, brillo. Hang on, hang on. Wait a mo. It is absolutely delicious.”
That’s an actual quote.
One piece of source material for politicians’ favourite wines in the UK is the long-running radio show, Desert Island Discs. Claret is a common choice, from people like Lord (Roy) Jenkins. Norman Tebbit said he wanted “a drinking fountain with taps for Sancerre and claret”. David Davis MP, wanted “a magic wine cellar which never runs out”. Somewhat like the money tree that’s been funding recent administrations.
Other times we find out what politicians drink by accident. Liz Truss’s leaked “rider” revealed that she insists on having a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in her hotel room fridge every day on trips. A predictably dull anecdotes. But when Sir Nicholas Soames was preparing to appear on radio once, the sound engineer checked the microphone levels by asking him what he had had for breakfast. Unfortunately the presenter faded him up a little too early, so the first thing listeners heard was Soames saying “half a cold grouse and bottle of breakfast claret old boy”.
Heavy boozing on wine is not something restricted to 18th or 19th century history. Clare Short once stood up in the chamber to declare that Alan Clark wasn’t in a fit state to speak in the House of Commons. It caused a furious division in the lobbies. Clark later happily admitted he wasn’t in a fit state. He’d just been to a wine tasting where they compared Chateau Palmer ‘61 and ‘74 (some reports say ‘75), and a Pichon Longueville ‘61 for good measure.
But wine and politics is not always a tale of excess and debauchery either. Stanley Baldwin once personally intervened to get HM Customs and Excise to release a consignment of Communion Wine seized in Liverpool (Hyde Altar Wines still have the letter).
But here are some less celebrated political wine stories…
Ramsay Macdonald was the first person to be called a Champagne Socialist. Macdonald was unquestionably working class, the illegitimate son of a farm labourer and a housemaid. Yet as his status as a politician grew, so did his tastes. He ate and drank well. Not least Champagne. As party leader he would enter the opulent eve-of-Parliament dinners given by the Marchioness of Londonderry alongside his hostess, with whom he was said to be obsessed. They would enter under Londonderry House’s famed rococo chandelier, walking down the grandest staircase in London and into the ballroom, which was larger even than the Waterloo Chamber at Apsley House, home to the Duke of Wellington across Park Lane.
Among the Labour movement, this cavorting was deemed to have corrupted Macdonald. To have softened him. And to eventually lead him to sell out the party to the National Government of 1931. He became the first for whom Champagne Socialism was a critique. More among his own party, than the opposition. Churchill could hardly throw the charge at him… given those 42,000 bottles of Champagne.
Macdonald also had the dubious distinction of being a prominent member of the 1917 Club, founded for Socialists by by Leonard Woolf (Virginia’s husband) and Oliver Strachey (Lytton’s brother). It was considered “no place to be a judge of wine” with “only two members capable of telling a vintage claret from a bottle of fortified Algerian must. One of them was Count Karolyi, the exiled Prime Minister of Hungary”. It closed down in 1931, soon after Sir Oswald Mosley gave a speech outlining his policy objectives. Perhaps an early example of the Horseshoe Theory.
Iain MacLeod was one of those “greatest Prime Ministers we never had”. He died young and in office as Chancellor. Possibly connected to smoking sixty cigarettes a day. He famously gave a press conference outlining for the first time a causal link between smoking and lung cancer while chain smoking throughout, which gave him a headache but also “the plaudits of The Treasury”. But his contribution to wine was more accidental, as he found himself running the Norwegian state alcohol monopoly - Vinmonopolet - at the end of the War. “All I did was to sign the chits and fix the prices,” he later recalled... “One shilling for red and white wines, three bob for a bottle of champagne”. As his biographer wrote “few other future Chancellors have been able to point to such practical success at matching supply and demand, managing a market and showing a profit”. Ironically, in a world of MBA-financial-wizkid-economist-management-consultant-finance-bro politicians, MacLeod’s job before he became a politician was “professional bridge player”. MacLeod did at least follow his own advice. He gave up smoking while in office. Although “not because of the link — in which he ‘firmly believed’ — but because he ‘got bored with a messy habit’”.
It’s also a big day in the USA…
Lest we forget that today is also Independence Day we should also remember a few political wine connections from the USA. For instance, the wine served at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding came from vines at the vineyard now owned by Donald Trump. Ronald Reagan owned one of America (and the world’s) first temperature controlled wine rooms - a gift from General Electric for his work presenting and promoting the TV series “General Electric presents…”. Alexander Butterfield who installed recording devices in President Nixon’s Oval Office was also responsible for procuring the Chateau Margaux that Nixon had served hidden in a napkin to himself at State Dinners. There is an American grape variety called “Clinton” with such a deep colour it has the ability to stain clothing. So much of our history can be told in wine.
Whatever happens today….
Everyone in the UK trade is calling on the next government to commit to making the temporary easement for wine between 11.5% and 14.5% permanent. If this expires - as planned - on 1st February 2025 it would come on the back of the largest duty increases in almost 50 years. Increases that have already added an average of 20% in duty on wine and 10% on spirits earlier this year.
The wine and spirits sector in the UK is worth £70bn annually in economic activity. And withdrawing the easement would create significant and unnecessary one-off and ongoing running costs. Not to mention imposing extraordinary and unmanageable complexity on operations.
It’s time to vote. Whichever way you go, you deserve a drink afterwards. But let’s make sure that’s not followed by the words “while you can afford it”.
Thank you for these fun stories, I love history! I'm assuming you have read "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" by Tom Standage?
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