Les incidences des relations franco-britanniques sur le commerce du vin (1689- 1860)

War and wine : the constrained evolution of the Anglo-French wine trade , 1689-1860 Prior to the last quarter of the seventeenth century, France was Britain's largest trading partner and accounted for the bulk of Britain's large merchandise trade deficit, mostly through the sale of wine and brandies. War with France, and retaliation for Colbert's mercantilist policies limiting imports of British manufacture led to prohibitions followed by extravagantly high tariffs on French wine and other alcoholic beverages. The long period of prohibition and tariffs between 1689 and 1713 permitted three strong lobbies to emerge in Britain : domestic beer brewers, makers of gin, whiskey and other liquor, and Anglo-Portuguese wine merchants. This led to a deliberate policy of keeping out French products and promotion of local beverages and imports from Portugal and Spain. Indeed, the Portuguese export of wines developed primarily to serve Britain. For the French, this meant the loss of her most lucrative market for over one and a half centuries, a loss only partially alleviated by French development of high-priced, high-quality wines designed to minimize the effects of specific (per volume) tariffs. For France, this meant a substantial loss of income. Preliminary calculations suggest a counterfactual in which I860 French domestic product would have been 20% to 70% higher depending on the underlying assumptions, a loss of much greater magnitude than the calculated gains for Britain from the steam engine. For Britain, this served as the foundation of a tax system that relied heavily on customs duties and domestic excises on alcoholic beverages while developing a national pattern of alcoholic demand centered on beer and gin at the low end and port and fine Bordeaux at the high end. Overall this paper stresses the importance of examining gains (or in this case, losses) from trade in an evolving economic and political context.A la fin du XVIIe siècle, les guerres de Louis XIV ont incité l'Angleterre à limiter l'importation des denrées françaises, surtout les vins et alcools. Ces prohibitions sont à l'origine d'un système douanier qui s'est prolongé au XIXe siècle et qui a presque totalement anéanti l'exportation des vins de France en encourageant celle du Portugal et de l'Espagne. Ces mesures ont eu pour résultat inattendu de modifier les goûts des consommateurs britanniques en les orientant vers la bière et le porto et de pousser les viticulteurs français à produire des vins haut de gamme. Des calculs préliminaires pour le counterfactual montrent que la perte cumulative pour la France a pu s'élever de 20% à 70% du produit national de la France pour les années 1860.Nye John Vincent. Les incidences des relations franco-britanniques sur le commerce du vin (1689- 1860). In: Cahiers d'Economie et sociologie rurales, N°30, 1er trimestre 1994. pp. 79-94