Rod Phillips publishes article on wine during the French Revolution
Professor Rod Phillips has published an article in the Festschrift for Peter McPhee, a noted Australian historian of the French Revolution. A colloquium in honour of McPhee was held at the University of Melbourne in July 2019 and Phillips was invited to give a paper. It has just been published on H-France:
In the paper, Phillips examines policies related to wine in Burgundy during the French Revolution and shows that, like other commodities, wine was brought into the political culture of the period. To demonstrate the importance attached to wine at this time, he opens with the shocking story of a man executed for having serving ‘spoiled’ wine to soldiers in 1792. Phillips writes that the Revolutionary authorities aimed to marginalize fine wines (which were associated with the nobility and the wealthy) and to remove bad wines from the market. What was to be available to citizens of France was simple, good-quality wine that was pleasant, safe to drink, and affordable.