1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

Some other Funchal Wine-Stores.

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time of war •witli the periodical convoys. In the good old times- fleets of -war-vessels, as -well as convoys of merchantmen,used constantly to touch at Madeira and take in large supplies of ■wine, the orders for which the merchants often found it difficult to execute during the short time the ships remained in port. On these occasions it frequently happened that whilst the merchants were entertaining the officers above stairs, and" dancingwas being kept up rmtil the small hours of the morning, , the clerks and cellarmen were as busy as bees down below getting the required "wine ready, for shipment. It has been stated that the substitution of sherry for Madeira by George IV. 'drove the latter wine out of fashion and caused its greatly reduced consumption; but this can scarcely have been the case, since it was not until the "First Gentleman in Em-ope" had been interred in the Eoyal vault at Windsor that any great falling off in the importation of Madeira occurred. In 1842 the shipments of the-wine to England were under 1,000 pipes; and subsequently a severe blow was dealt to a failing trade by the oidium, when production altogether ceased, and existing stocks became gradually exhausted, while prices rose, as the latter diminished, from £,26 to £76 per pipe for the lowest qualities. This enhancement of the price of Madeiranatu rally operated unfavourably with regard to the consumption,, more especially as the shippers of sherry and marsala succeeded in keeping the English market supplied with these last-named wines at almost one-fourth of the rate demanded for common Madeiras. The consumer of Madeira, thus forced to fall back upon sherry and marsala, in many instances never returned to his old love. The East Indianmarket, too, hadbecome affected first by the dissolution of the East India Company, which imported the wine largely to their possessions, and subsequently by the construction of the Suez Canal, which opened a more favourable route to the East, so that ships no longer called at Madeira on their outward voyage for their half-dozen or half-scoi'e pipes of wine according to ancient custom; two things of which the wine-di'inking portion of the British public.