Ho Bryan
Ξ February 13th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ A Day at a Time, Wine History |
In my previous article, I discussed the foundation of why Bordeaux exists, ending with its transfer back to French rule after the first 100 years war. It sounded like a happy ending, but in truth, it was just the beginning of the formation of the region.
France and England remained at war on a regular basis. In reality after the end of the first 100 years war in 1453 they didn’t really stop warring against each other until around 1815. There was an official peace of about 120 years between 1559 and 1688 but when you look back in the books, not really. Henry VIII was chopping off his wives heads and giving Pope Clement VII the two finger salute whilst destroying monasteries, ending whatever wine production England had at the time wasn’t exactly what the English public would have called peaceful, maybe normal, but not a happy time. Fifty years after that England was in Civil War for fifteen or so years (I’m sure the French had their fingers in all that unpleasant mess unofficially) ending in 1652 and 30 years later France and England were officially back at it.
During those 400 years of war and peace the English ‘discovered’ modern Bordeaux as we know it. On April 10th, 1663, a young Samuel Pepys wrote in his fine diary about “A sort of French wine, called Ho Bryan that hath a good and most particular taste that I ever met with.” Pepys chalked one up for phonetic spellers.
Wait, did I say discover? No, it was hardly discovered, it was the first known documented and marketed wine brand. A brand wine in the 1600’s? Todays image of brands brings to mind names like Yellow Tail, Antinori, Mateus and Mouton Rothschild. They are made popular with exclusivity or market penetration and a lot of advertising dollars are spent on maintaining their reputations. In today’s world if you want to make something famous, you just have to have enough money to sustain a large multi media advertising campaign. Case in point, the Yellow Tail phenomenon. But in the 17th century during Pepys lifetime, newspapers were only about 30 years old, printing presses about 120 years and the local news report was in the form of some poor bastard standing on a box, ringing a bell, screaming the town’s taxes just got raised by the King to pay for whatever war they were in at the time, and praying he didn’t get stoned by the townspeople upon hearing the news.
So how would a vigneron in France make his wine the most famous in England, create heavy demand and escalate its price during the 17th century without modern advertising tools? By building an exclusive pub in the wake of chaos.
During the great fire of 1666 a pub called The White Bear Tavern was destroyed. In its place on Lombard and Abchurch was built The Pontack’s Head, from which the finest French food and the finest claret from a single source called Haut Brion was served. The tavern was a hit in the City of London, very popular and very expensive.
But why am I writing about pub in London? There were hundreds, maybe thousands of alehouses, taverns and public houses during that time. What made it special as it was the first known pub to be built by a Bordeaux chateau or any other producer to exclusively sell its wine. For example, its common today for breweries in England to own pubs to exclusively sell their products. It’s formally called a “tied-house” as opposed to a “free-house” which can sell whatever brands it chooses. Would the Pontack be the first of its kind? Technically no, alehouses made and sold their own named brew on site, but domestically England only produced wine for sacramental purposes, so it was the first exclusive fine wine brand to be documented and sold as such.
The Pontac (Pontack) family of Bordeaux were wine exporters and wealthy with vast holdings throughout what was the Graves region. They primarily produced red wine from sandy gravely soil not suited for anything else other than wine production. Though the estate was in wine production for 150 years previous, it took the Dutch to give the family an opportunity to turn their claret into something in demand.
In 1635 the Dutch became allies with France. It’s not generally known, but the Dutch purchased much more wine from the Bordeaux region than any other country at the time and in 1647 formed a committee to establish the wine prices for the region. This is but one of many formal and informal lists that took place before the famous 1855 classification, however, until 1855 some of these classifications were made to bend prices more favorably in the interested parties direction. The new classification by the Dutch distributors detailed the sweet wines of Bordeaux and the “palus” wines.
The sweet wines were popular in Holland and the classification used to raise market prices, and the Dutch transported the palus wines to the New World. Claret was not included in the classification. It wasn’t included because it had no market in Holland. Claret was king in England, but too many wars and trade restrictions were always in the way. The current owner, Arnaud de Pontac, had to find a way to sell his fine “unclassified” wine called Haut-Brion (Ho Bryan) and increase the family fortune.
By the 17th century, wine production was becoming more advanced. Pontac began using viticultural practices to ripen his grapes, deepen the colour of his wine, separate its style from the common claret of the period. What he produced was the predecessor to the modern red Bordeaux we enjoy today, and unique and popular enough to garner many written references (first tasting notes?) of its finesse.
The diaries I’ve researched show Haut-Brion selling for around 7 schillings a bottle around 38 pounds or $76 at the Pontack’s Head around 1663. It was cheaper to just to buy your bottles and take them home instead of drinking at the Pontack as dinner cost about one pound or 108 pounds or $216 in today’s exchange, but it did include a beaker of Haut-Brion wine. The Pontack’s Head was very popular and one of the best places to be seen at. Vanity has always been easy to capitalize on and though it seems London has always been an expensive destination, fine dining does appear to now be a bargain. Given the current rate of inflation that same dinner would cost about $1500 today and I doubt any dinner by Marco Pierre White, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller or Ferran Adria could garner those prices for a single person’s supper.
Such expense, you say? This was an era without a lot of regulation and any business that anyone could walk into and be assured the food would always be the finest quality and the best wine served full strength, not watered down with polluted, brackish water from the Thames, would be in great demand. The outrageous prices formed the most exclusive club in town. The Royal Society had their annual dinners for nearly 100 years at the Pontack’s Head. The Royal Society is England’s oldest learned society for science and its presidents while the Pontack was in operation were Christopher Wren, Charles Montagu, Lord Somers, Isaac Newton and our good friend Samuel Pepys. What illustrious patrons the Pontack had!
But how did Haut Brion maintain its consumption demands and sales in England when every other day they were or were not at war? A bit of smuggling. Of course a blind eye would be turned for the most famous tavern in London so image and status could be maintained for its patrons. It was common to sell the wine to a country not at war with England to get the goods through. Of course smuggling also avoided the hefty taxes and there are invoices for small French and Channel islands habitants supposedly consuming absurd amounts of wine that would easily kill a human in a week.
Today, wine production and pricing has always been about supply and demand. When a famous wine like Haut-Brion has a huge demand for its luscious and hedonistic style, it gets huge prices to match, no matter the era when it’s sold.
Donna
