For years the price of fine wine has been creeping up. Wines that, ten years ago, were affordable are now not. I recently heard a gentleman who has worked in the wine trade for many decades say that when he started he could drink classed Bordeaux, now he can only afford cru Bourgois. But then I found some old catalogues from three merchants, Saccone & Speed, Peter Dominic and Alastair Campbell, dating from the mid 1950s through to the early 1960s. Looking through them, and salivating over legendary wines for less than one pound fifty per bottle, two things struck me. Firstly, the wine merchants of yesteryear were vastly different from today and secondly, it appeared that the wines were so expensive in days gone by.
First up, Alastair Campbell. Decades before that name meant Labour party spin, if you lived in Edinburgh, it meant the Bruntsfield Place wine merchant. His small, pocket sized brochure starts with eleven pages of waffle, albeit with perfect grammar. An introduction explaining why prices have gone up, puts the blame firmly with the almighty, by stating “for three years now the sun hasn’t shone when it should have, frost has appeared when it needn’t have done and mildew, oidium, hailstones and several feet of snow have all occurred in places and in an abundance that they never bothered in living memory”. There is also evidence of recycling (in 1955!) with the suggestion “Empty Bottles? Unless you want to keep ‘em for the next Celtic v Rangers tussle – we’d welcome their return…”. How I long for an end to political correction when it was ok for a wine merchant to suggest chucking glass bottles at football fans….
Unfortunately, there were precious few wines I can compare to the present day in Alastair Campbell’s list. I realised that the best regions to stick to were Champagne, Bordeaux and Port, as these regions are the nearest France has to Brands. Germany, Burgundy, Spain etc, are mainly described as “Hock”, “Chablis” or “Rioja” without a producer, which, aside for being no good for this article, shows how uneducated the customer was forty years ago.
I needed to figure out the costs of wine in relation to the average weekly wage. In 2007, the average weekly wage (according to National Statistics) is £498 for a man. In 1958, it was seven pounds. Now, as a lot of folk reading this will never have dealt with pre decimalised British currency, I’m going to convert everything into decimal to make life easy.
The first wine I found was Lanson Black Lable Champagne. The fifties price was 27/6 (twenty seven shillings and sixpence) or £1.375 or 20% of the weekly wage. Compare that to today, where Lanson costs £22 per bottle at Oddbins, that is 4.5% of the weekly wage. A 1935 Sandeman Vintage Port was 33 shillings, or 23.5% of the weekly wage. A 1985 version of this port, with a similar amount of age today as the ’35 had in ’58, is £28 from Fine & Rare Wines, or 5.6% of the pre tax average earnings.
I looked to Saccone & Speed’s “Wine & Cigar List – Summer 1954” to see if prices were falling in the 1950s. After passing by a quote from Aristophanes, I looked at some Bordeaux wines. A 1948 Mouton Rothschild was 234 shillings a case, or £11.70, or just under 2 weeks of the ’54 average wage of 130 shillings. However, when I looked for the price of a similarly aged Mouton from this decade, I found that it cost nearly three weeks wages. Remembering that in 1954, Mouton was a second growth, I checked other first growths, and found that there were similar results, with the price (in relation to the weekly wage) being more expensive today than half a century ago. Normal service was resumed with a 1926 Gruaud Larose was 18% of the weekly wage per bottle. I looked to a good vintage from the seventies, for a similarly aged wine, and found 1970 Gruaud going for £55 or 11% of the average wage. Moet & Chandon 1947 was, in today’s money, £1.47 per bottle (22%) compared to Moet 2000 today at £35 (7%) and a matured for 20 years Offley Boa Vista vintage port was twenty one percent, for the ’35 vintage in ’54, and only 4% for the 1985 vintage today.
Forwarding a decade, “The Wine Mine” from Peter Dominic Ltd, I decided to look at their spirits prices. Gordons Gin is today thought of as cheap gin, and you can usually pick it up for at the most £11 (2.2% of the weekly wage). In 1961 it was 39/9, or just under £2. The average weekly wage was eight and a half pounds, so this made a bottle of Gordons cost just under twelve hours work! Smirnoff was the same as Gordons, and Cinzano was 9.4% compared to 1.3% today. Comparing single malt prices shows that in 1961, Glenmorangie 10 Year Old was £2.37 (28%) and Laphroaig 10 Year Old £2.62 (31%), compared to £22 (4.4%) and £20 (4%) respectively today.
But it was reading The Wine Mine’s Bordeaux introduction that interested me the most. I quote, “In the past 10 years demand for Claret from such countries as Germany, Belgium, Sweden and the USA, to say nothing of our own, has increased and with demand exceeding supply, prices have risen. ‘Uncle Sam’ in fact now drinks three bottles of French wine to ‘John Bull’s’ four and, with the rate of exchange in his favour, ‘Uncle Sam’ can afford the best”. How times have both changed, and not changed! While prices for French wine, particularly the top wines, are still increasing, it is the far east market not the USA that a significant contributor to the rise. And since the skinny chip changed it’s name to Freedom Fries when America invaded Iraq and decided it didn’t like France, the American market has dried up. And as for the exchange rate being in “Uncle Sam’s” favour? Best not go there…
So really, we shouldn’t be moaning when yet another champagne house hikes up it’s retail price to fund it’s latest marketing campaign or when the latest vintage of port gets inflated values. Compared to forty or fifty years ago, things aren’t that bad. OK, so in 1961 you could buy a nice house for four times the annual wage, when today you need six, we are taxed much more than fifty years ago, and society has gone to hell, but we can drown our sorrows in booze because things are cheaper now than they have ever been.
First up, Alastair Campbell. Decades before that name meant Labour party spin, if you lived in Edinburgh, it meant the Bruntsfield Place wine merchant. His small, pocket sized brochure starts with eleven pages of waffle, albeit with perfect grammar. An introduction explaining why prices have gone up, puts the blame firmly with the almighty, by stating “for three years now the sun hasn’t shone when it should have, frost has appeared when it needn’t have done and mildew, oidium, hailstones and several feet of snow have all occurred in places and in an abundance that they never bothered in living memory”. There is also evidence of recycling (in 1955!) with the suggestion “Empty Bottles? Unless you want to keep ‘em for the next Celtic v Rangers tussle – we’d welcome their return…”. How I long for an end to political correction when it was ok for a wine merchant to suggest chucking glass bottles at football fans….
Unfortunately, there were precious few wines I can compare to the present day in Alastair Campbell’s list. I realised that the best regions to stick to were Champagne, Bordeaux and Port, as these regions are the nearest France has to Brands. Germany, Burgundy, Spain etc, are mainly described as “Hock”, “Chablis” or “Rioja” without a producer, which, aside for being no good for this article, shows how uneducated the customer was forty years ago.
I needed to figure out the costs of wine in relation to the average weekly wage. In 2007, the average weekly wage (according to National Statistics) is £498 for a man. In 1958, it was seven pounds. Now, as a lot of folk reading this will never have dealt with pre decimalised British currency, I’m going to convert everything into decimal to make life easy.
The first wine I found was Lanson Black Lable Champagne. The fifties price was 27/6 (twenty seven shillings and sixpence) or £1.375 or 20% of the weekly wage. Compare that to today, where Lanson costs £22 per bottle at Oddbins, that is 4.5% of the weekly wage. A 1935 Sandeman Vintage Port was 33 shillings, or 23.5% of the weekly wage. A 1985 version of this port, with a similar amount of age today as the ’35 had in ’58, is £28 from Fine & Rare Wines, or 5.6% of the pre tax average earnings.
I looked to Saccone & Speed’s “Wine & Cigar List – Summer 1954” to see if prices were falling in the 1950s. After passing by a quote from Aristophanes, I looked at some Bordeaux wines. A 1948 Mouton Rothschild was 234 shillings a case, or £11.70, or just under 2 weeks of the ’54 average wage of 130 shillings. However, when I looked for the price of a similarly aged Mouton from this decade, I found that it cost nearly three weeks wages. Remembering that in 1954, Mouton was a second growth, I checked other first growths, and found that there were similar results, with the price (in relation to the weekly wage) being more expensive today than half a century ago. Normal service was resumed with a 1926 Gruaud Larose was 18% of the weekly wage per bottle. I looked to a good vintage from the seventies, for a similarly aged wine, and found 1970 Gruaud going for £55 or 11% of the average wage. Moet & Chandon 1947 was, in today’s money, £1.47 per bottle (22%) compared to Moet 2000 today at £35 (7%) and a matured for 20 years Offley Boa Vista vintage port was twenty one percent, for the ’35 vintage in ’54, and only 4% for the 1985 vintage today.
Forwarding a decade, “The Wine Mine” from Peter Dominic Ltd, I decided to look at their spirits prices. Gordons Gin is today thought of as cheap gin, and you can usually pick it up for at the most £11 (2.2% of the weekly wage). In 1961 it was 39/9, or just under £2. The average weekly wage was eight and a half pounds, so this made a bottle of Gordons cost just under twelve hours work! Smirnoff was the same as Gordons, and Cinzano was 9.4% compared to 1.3% today. Comparing single malt prices shows that in 1961, Glenmorangie 10 Year Old was £2.37 (28%) and Laphroaig 10 Year Old £2.62 (31%), compared to £22 (4.4%) and £20 (4%) respectively today.
But it was reading The Wine Mine’s Bordeaux introduction that interested me the most. I quote, “In the past 10 years demand for Claret from such countries as Germany, Belgium, Sweden and the USA, to say nothing of our own, has increased and with demand exceeding supply, prices have risen. ‘Uncle Sam’ in fact now drinks three bottles of French wine to ‘John Bull’s’ four and, with the rate of exchange in his favour, ‘Uncle Sam’ can afford the best”. How times have both changed, and not changed! While prices for French wine, particularly the top wines, are still increasing, it is the far east market not the USA that a significant contributor to the rise. And since the skinny chip changed it’s name to Freedom Fries when America invaded Iraq and decided it didn’t like France, the American market has dried up. And as for the exchange rate being in “Uncle Sam’s” favour? Best not go there…
So really, we shouldn’t be moaning when yet another champagne house hikes up it’s retail price to fund it’s latest marketing campaign or when the latest vintage of port gets inflated values. Compared to forty or fifty years ago, things aren’t that bad. OK, so in 1961 you could buy a nice house for four times the annual wage, when today you need six, we are taxed much more than fifty years ago, and society has gone to hell, but we can drown our sorrows in booze because things are cheaper now than they have ever been.
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