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Liquid Assets: Madeira Wine and Cultural Capital among Lowcountry Planters, 1735–1900

2005; Routledge; Volume: 6; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14664650500314513

1743-7903

James H. Tuten,

Social and Cultural Dynamics

Abstract This article explores the history of the South Carolina and Georgia elites' passion for madeira wine. It describes the nature of madeira and the characteristics that made the wine unique. By historical accidents, planters and merchants developed an ardent taste for madeira and over time this fondness became elevated to a tradition for collecting. Employing Bourdieu's concepts of multiple forms of capital, the article demonstrates that madeira became an important form of cultural capital as an elite consumer good. However, reduced circumstances resulting from the economic disruptions of the Civil War brought an end to madeira culture by 1900. Keywords: madeiralowcountryplanterscultural capitalCivil War Notes [1] Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 221–2. The family's home had been the rice plantation Chicora Wood, but R.F.W. Allston had moved them and their most valuable property, including his wine, to Crowley Hill in Darlington County which was much further inland and deemed safer from Union encroachments on the coast. See Charles Joyner, 'Introduction' to Elizabeth Allston Pringle, A Woman Rice Planter, xix. [2] While the subject is beyond the scope of this article, the incident is also interesting as a case of interracial cooperation on the eve of emancipation. Pringle, Chronicles, 221–3. [3] Pringle, Chronicles, 225–7. [4] Ibid., 229–33. See also Joyner, 'Introduction,' in A Woman Rice Planter, xxi. [5] The planters of South Carolina went to great pains to replicate the style and habits of the English elites. It is not surprising then that they saw the collecting and consumption of fine wine as a worthwhile and dignified practice. Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects, 5–7. [6] Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 178–83; Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, 75–6. [7] It has been suggested that 'there is a romance in those wines of Madeira.' See Bell, 'The Romantic Wines of Madeira,' 322–36, 323. [8] Liddell, Madeira, 3–10. [9] Ibid., 24–5, 28–30. On the quality of madeira wines before heating and fortification see Corby Kummer, 'Imperishable Wine: The Tempered Virtues of Madeira,' 140–42. [10] Liddell, Madeira, 30–31; Hancock, 'Commerce and Conversation in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic: The Invention of Madeira Wine,' 197–219. [11] Heating improves the flavor of madeira because the sugars in the wine are changed. The result is an additional 'powerful charge of flavor' according to Kummer, 'Imperishable Wine,' 140–41. On the history of estufagem see Liddell, Madeira, 29–33, and Hancock, 'Commerce and Conversation,' 212–14. [12] Hancock, 'Commerce and Conversation,' 204–7; Kummer, 'Imperishable Wine,' 140–41; Liddell, Madeira, 30–31; Bell, 'Romantic Wines,' 324. [13] Cossart, Madeira: The Island Vineyard, 73–4, 106–14; Liddell, Madeira, 52, 134–9, 149–50. [14] Stuart Stumpf and Jennings B. Marshall, 'Trends in Charleston's Inter‐regional Import Trade, 1735–1736,' 246, 261–2. [15] Hancock, 'The British Atlantic World: Co–ordination, Complexity, and the Emergence of an Atlantic Market Economy, 1651–1815,' 107–26. Hancock argues that the madeira trade defies most elements of the paradigm of Atlantic World trade. David Hancock, 'Commerce and Conversation,' 197–219. [16] Dickerson, 'John Hancock: Notorious Smuggler or Near Victim of British Revenue Racketeers?' 517–40. [17] Ford, 'The Many Sided Franklin,' 289–90. For more on madeira use among the founders see Woolfolk, 'A Toast to the Madeira Tradition,' 39–41. [18] Bigelow, 'Jefferson's Financial Dairy,' 540–41. Currency conversion from the Columbia Journalism Review at http://www.cjr.org/resources/inflater.asp. [19] Unlike almost every other coveted type of European wine, madeira became fashionable in North America before, or along with a rise in its popularity with the English gentry. The clientele was primarily the US port cities and England. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps, 24–5. [20] Pease, 'A Note on Patterns of Conspicuous Consumption Among Seaboard Planters, 1820–1860,' 381–93. Madeira was also a favorite in Savannah; see Bell, 'Ease and Elegance, Madeira and Murder: The Social Life of Savannah's City Hotel,' 551–76. [21] Bual (or Boal) and Sercial are varieties of madeira. William Howard Russell, 'Recollections of the Civil War II,' 368. [22] Both town homes and plantations houses were outfitted with madeira space in the garrets. Examples include places on the Waccamaw and Combahee Rivers. See Smith, A Charlestonian's Recollections 1846–1913, 82–3 and Côté, Mary's World: Love, War, and Family Ties in Nineteenth Century Charleston, 38. [23] Mitchell, A Madeira Party 20, 32. Gabriel Manigault largely concurred with Mitchell's handling advice of limited light, but believed in bottling and one to two decades of garret heat. See 'A Sketch of Madeira wine and its former consumption in Charleston and Savannah,' circa 1880, Manigault Collection, South Carolina Historical Society (SCHS). [24] Manigault, Autobiography, 453, typescript at South Caroliniana Library (SCL) and Manigault, 'Sketch of Madeira Wine.' [25] Habersham looms large in madeira lore thanks in large part to Malcolm Bell, Jr. See Bell, 'Romantic Wines,' 333–6; Cossart, Madeira, 110,130–33; 'Catalogue of Madeiras and Sherries Belonging to the Estate of William Neyle Habersham,' in Jones Family Papers, Georgia Historical Society, Savannah (GHS). The testimonial to Habersham's palate appears in McAllister, Society As I Have Found It, 271–2. [26] Cossart, Madeira: The Island Vineyard, 130–35. [27] Bell, Romantic Wines, 328. [28] Shryock, Letters of Richard D. Arnold, 90; see Letter to Miss Mary W. Houston, 10 May 1858 and Letter to Howell Cobb, 15 Nov. 1858. Weir, A Madeira Party, 3. There is some reason to question the accuracy of some details of Weir's account. See 'Madeira Party,' 51. [29] Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, 67, 71, 76. [30] Manigault 'Sketch of Madeira,' SCHS. [31] See Swartz, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, 75–6. Examples of gift‐giving of madeira appear in the R.F.W. Allston Papers, Habersham Papers, and Shryock, Letters of Richard D. Arnold, 90, letter to Miss Mary W. Houston, 10 May 1858. [32] Mitchell, A Madeira Party, 44–5; McAllister, Society as I have Found It, 271–5; Bell, 'Romantic Wines,' 328–9. On the Butlers and Madeira see Bell, Major Butler's Legacy: Five Generations of a Slaveholding Family, 64–5. [33] Sale Catalogue of William Neyle Habersham Madeiras and Sherries, Jones Family Collection (GHS); McAllister, Society as I Have Found It, 274. [34] The plantation economy of Madeira was already in trouble but the oidium crisis was disastrous to the island, forcing the government to plead for international aid to buy food. Only one grape variety on Madeira proved resistant, Isabela, which became more widely planted on the island after the crisis. See Liddell, Madeira, 49–51, 53–4; Cossart, Madeira, 86. [35] A counter example is found in D.E. Huger Smith's memoir. His account suggests that in at least a few instances the threat of losing property to Union troops encouraged consumption. At his family plantation Smithfield on the Combahee River, 'the garret had not been despoiled of its Madeira wine, and the insecurity of the possession of anything that lay so near the enemy took away the suggestion of waste.' Smith, A Charlestonian's Recollections, 82–3. [36] Massey, Ersatz in the Confederacy: Shortages and Substitutes on the Southern Homefront, 74–5. [37] Gabriel Manigault Autobiography, SCL, 453–6. [38] Sparks, 'Gentleman's Sport: Horse Racing in Antebellum Charleston,' 17, 23–5, 29–30. 'Jockey Club Madeira,' Sunday News, July 1900 in Hinson File, Charleston Library Society, Charleston, SC (CLS). [39] 'Old Charleston Madeira' Sunday News, 15 Jan. 1899; 'Jockey Club Madeira,' Sunday News, July 1900 in Hinson File, CLS; Edgar, South Carolina: A History, 372–4. [40] Sale Catalogue, Jones Family Papers, GHS; Bell, 'Romantic Wines' 333–5; Cossart, Madeira, 130–3,135; William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs, 571–81; McCandless, Moonlight, Magnolias and Madness: Insanity in South Carolina From the Colonial Period to the Progressive Era, 216–18. [41] 'Jockey Club Madeira,' Sunday News July 1900, Hinson File, CLS. [42] Manigault, 'A Sketch of Madeira,' SCHS. [43] 'Jockey Club Madeira,' Sunday News July 1900, Hinson File, CLS. [44] Letter to E. H. Green, 29 June 1867, in Louis Manigault Papers, Perkins Library, Duke University. [45] Ibid.; Manigault, Autobiography, 456–7. The wines sold in Charleston garnered a slightly higher price – $65 per dozen – than those sold in London which went for $60 per dozen. This would be the equivalent of over $8,300 today. D.E. Huger Smith recalled that his grandmother sold off madeira for $10 a bottle shortly after the war. Smith, A Charlestonian's Recollections, 82–3. [46] Cossart, Madeira, 86–91; Liddell, Madeira, 55–9. [47] The sellers used up 30 bottles of madeira in filling up the remaining bottles. The collection had 714 bottles in the insane asylum. 'Jockey Club Madeira,' Sunday News, July 1900; Sunday News, 11 Feb. 1900, Hinson File, CLS. See also Sparks, 'Jockey Club,' 30. [48] Roark, Masters Without Slaves, viii. It has been argued that lowcountry planters gave up madeira but maintained other kinds of cultural capital that marked them as the master class well into the twentieth century. See Tuten, 'Time and Tide', especially vii and ix. [49] This is to say nothing of the amount of sherry he had collected. Sale Catalogue, Jones Family Collection, GHS and Cossart, Madeira, Appendix. [50] Some information on prices and buyers at the Habersham auction through a hand‐annotated copy of the Habersham Sale Catalogue, Jones Family Collection, GHS; Cossart, Madeira, 134–5; 'The Jockey Club Madeira' 16 July 1900 in Hinson Clipping File, CLS. Prior to the Jockey Club Madeira, Delmonico's served madeiras from the cellar of DeRenne of Savannah, Georgia; see Cossart, Madeira, 64. [51] See in particular Verner E. Kelly, 'The First Forty Years of the Madeira Club 1950–1990,' a paper read at the Madeira Club 23 Jan. 1991. Not unlike Haberhsam. Mills B. Lane's collection was worthy of auction. Christie's auction house in London sold Mills B. Lane, Jr.'s Madeira in 1990. Madeira Club Collection, GHS. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJames H. TutenJames H. Tuten is assistant professor of history and assistant provost at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.