1999

Year the United States Congressional Wine Caucus was founded by Congressman Mike Thompson (Democrat, 5th District). The bipartisan caucus, which has over 115 Congressional members, helps address the needs of the wine industry, such as labor and water shortages. When Thompson founded the Caucus, the first member to join was Hillary Clinton, then a senator from New York.

Which wine was used to toast the signing of the Declaration of Independence?

A. Madeira

B. Virginia “Claret”

C. Champagne

D. Bordeaux

Drunk by the founding fathers during the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Madeira was also what Francis Scott Key sipped as he composed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” George Washington (who reportedly drank a pint every night with dinner), Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin all adored it, as did John Adams (who wrote to his wife, Abigail, about the copious amounts they consumed during the Continental Congress). By the end of the eighteenth century, nearly a fourth of all the Madeira produced was being exported to the American colonies. The unbridled American passion for Madeira was certainly a testament to its compelling flavor. But Madeira’s popularity was equally based on something far more mundane: taxes. As of 1665, British governing authorities in the colonies had banned the importation of European goods, unless they were shipped on British ships that had sailed from British ports (and paid British taxes). Merchandise shipped from Madeira was exempted. Merchants in Madeira took full advantage of the loophole, establishing close trading relationships with merchants in Baltimore, Boston, New York, Savannah, Charleston, and Philadelphia.

“Every season is likeable . . . red wine and white; company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions—a walk, a talk, solitude in one’s own orchard—can be enhanced and lit up by the association of the mind. Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger’s-breadth from goodness.”

—Virginia Woolf, “Montaigne” in The Common Reader.

1999

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