I really wasn't planning on writing a second blog post about Jane Austen and wine (how much can there be to say?!), but I stumbled upon another connection. At home in Portland for midterms weekend, I attended Kate Hamill's clever stage adaptation of Jane Austen's
Sense and Sensibility. After poor Marianne has her heart broken by Mr. Willoughby, Mrs. Jennings offers a glass of "the finest old Constantia wine." (Marianne's sister Elinor drinks the wine instead, but that's beside the point.)
The name "Constantia" rang a bell from my reading of
The Wine Bible, so I hurried to look it up. It turns out it's a South African winery with a history dating back to 1685: "Constantia produced Vin de Constance, a luscious dessert wine made from muscat blac a petits grains grapes. The wine rose to become one of the most sought-after dessert wines in all of Europe, ordered by the case by Napoleon Bonaparte and never absent from the table of King Frederick the Great of Germany" (895). And some good news: you can still get Vin de Constance today (though it's not cheap)!
Of course, this all set me wondering whether Jane Austen mentions wine elsewhere in her writings. The answer is, yes, often, especially in her letters. Some interesting things I learned about Austen from her comments on wine:
- Austen wasn't immune to overindulgence and its consequences: "I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand today." (Letter to Cassandra, 20 Nov 1800)
- She was not a fan of orange wine: "The pleasures of friendship, of unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and opinions will make good amends for orange wine." (Letter to Cassandra, 20 June 1808)
- In Austen's opinion, increasing wine consumption was a definite advantage of getting older: "By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many douceurs in being a sort of chaperon, for I am put on the sofa near the fire and can drink as much wine as I like." (Letter to Cassandra, 6 Nov 1813)
[With thanks to the aptly named blog Drunk Austen, most particularly https://drunkausten.com/2017/06/19/jane-austen-the-wino/.]
Love this! (and Jane, though I hate Willoughby)
ReplyDeleteShe puts it quite nicely in Northanger Abbey, too - "I am sure of this - that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now...There is not the hundredth part of wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be. Our foggy climate wants help."
That's a wonderful quote!
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