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History New luxury

4 pence per full bottle), stopped with a cork (the use of which also gradually

came into fashion), left to mature for a while and served in delicate Venetian

crystal glasses rather than the drinking horns, pewter mugs or leather cups of

the common people. If left to mature for a while, this new wine gradually de-

veloped astounding smoothness, a well-balanced taste and a stunning bouquet

the like of which no one had ever experienced before. And to ensure that the

wine would not be confused with others and would become its own brand, it

was named after its producer and place of origin and ultimately transformed

into a luxury product with the clever suggestion that it might be of noble origin

and have bathed in the twilight of a cellar in a chateau owned by some ancient

aristocracy. But more on that later.

After the end of the English Civil War (1642–1650) London became the intel-

lectual and cultural capital of Europe, knocking Paris off the podium. Not even

the plague to which a fifth of the city's population fell victim in 1665 or the Great

Fire of September 1666 (which actually claimed very few lives but caused mas-

sive destruction) could not compromise this development: London had made it

to the top and was there to stay. Shortly after the Great Fire, the Pontacs opened

a tavern in the capital called the Pontac's Head which quickly became the best

eatery in the city. It served up French specialities and its own wine, and soon

anyone who was anyone was seen there. Although Jonathan Swift complained

that the wine was much too expensive at seven shillings a flagon, other intel-

lectuals such as the philosopher John Locke became veritable ambassadors for

the brand. Locke paid a visit to Haut-Brion in 1677, carefully examined its terroir,

studied cultivation techniques and set about solving the mystery as to why the

Pontacs' wine tasted so delicious that ‘the rich English would order it for any

price'. He also noted: ‘The wine of Pontac, so revered in England, is made on a

little rise of ground, lieing open most to the west. It is noe thing but pure white

sand, mixed with a little gravel. One would imagin it scarce fit to beare anything.'

And suddenly everyone wanted some, and the de Pontacs were able to sell Ho

Brian at ten or twenty times the price of standard claret, pay off their creditors

and a

ff

ord younger courtesans.

However, the competition never sleeps. What was just right for the de Pontacs

was sacred to the de Ségurs, de Rauzans or de Lestonnacs, and the Bordeaux

bourgeois (who were all also ship-owners and merchants, and often lawyers or

notaries and bankers and always city parliamentarians) thus triggered what you

might call a veritable cultivation war in Bordeaux. And when the gravel mounds

to the southwest, west and northwest of the city (what is now Pessac-Léognan)

were requisitioned and seemed particularly suitable for producing this new

style of French wine which the Brits called ‘new French claret', Bordeaux's

moneyed aristocracy simply purchased the endless hunting grounds of the Mé-

doc, now dried out by the Dutch. These were characterised by the numerous