If you’ve been watching Ken Burns’s new series The American Revolution on PBS, you may have noticed that this Founding Father loved Madeira wine.
George Washington, first president and, by tradition, the Father of His Country, may have been the youthful nation’s biggest aficionado of them all.
“A fortified wine produced on the Portuguese island of Madeira in the eastern Atlantic, Madeira in the eighteenth century was common in Britain and particularly popular in the American colonies,” explains MountVernon.org, website for his historic home and the George Washington Presidential Library there. “George Washington had an affinity for this particular type of wine,” it adds laconically.
George Washington, seen here in one of his many portraits by Gilbert Stuart, loved Madeira wine and drank a considerable amount of it. It’s still a great choice for winter sipping.
Indeed, “affinity” may understate the case. Washington amassed huge stores of it throughout his life, even while he was leading his troops during the challenging early months of the Revolution. Atlas Obscura spells out some details in a 2017 article, How a Thirst for Portuguese Wine Fueled the American Revolution:
Washington ordered a dizzying volume of what had long ago become colonial-America’s favorite adult beverage: madeira, a fortified wine produced on a small Portuguese island located 360 miles west of Morocco.
On August 8, 1775, two months after taking charge of his army, Washington procured a large cask of the wine, as well as empty bottles, corks, and other paraphernalia. Over the next six months, he purchased hundreds of additional bottles and, eventually, an entire “pipe” (a term derived from the Portuguese word for barrel, “pipa”). A pipe of madeira held enough wine to fill 700 bottles, and a cask roughly the same. Washington, then, in preparation for war, ordered at least 1,900 bottles worth of the wine to be shared among his closest aides and confidants.
The American affection for Madeira in those days was not entirely based on the reality that it’s a delicious, relatively affordable, and very long-lived wine. It was also a political statement.
MA250, the organization celebrating the role of Massachusetts in the nation’s 250-year history, tells more in Madeira Wine: The Colonial Drink That Toasted a Revolution:
“When John Hancock’s ship, the Liberty, was seized in Boston Harbor in 1768 over a shipment of smuggled Madeira, it sparked riots and protests that foreshadowed the Boston Tea Party. Madeira was also reportedly the wine used by George Washington to toast the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Its popularity among the colonial leaders, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams, made Madeira more than a beverage; it became a subtle symbol of American self-sufficiency and resistance to British economic control.”
Amid the holiday season, with the first day of winter drawing near and The American Revolution currently airing on PBS stations, it’s a great time to try a taste of Madeira. This week’s featured wine, Broadbent Madeira Reserve 5 Year, is an excellent example that might help us understand why Washington and his associates were so smitten.
For more of my thoughts on Madeira, including tasting notes on a surprisingly affordable dry Madeira and another Founder who loved it, see my Sept. 22, 2017 column, How would Hamilton toast?
This week we’re tasting a warming Madeira, the wine that America’s founders loved. Have you tried Madeira? Tell us what you think!
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