Hivemind Request

[snurri]

I am unexpectedly in need of research materials relating to life on a vineyard between, say, 1650-1850. My own searches have come up with little in general, and nothing specific to the subject. (I HAZ MLS BUT I R KNOT VERA SMRT.) Any suggestions? Even a chapter would help.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I don't have specific titles to recommend, but one thing you could do is look up the history of a specific place famous for its history of vineyards. The first place that came to my mind was Martha's Vineyard, but I'm not sure it actually had a profitable wine-making business in its entire history (although if it did, it would have been its earlier, pre-tourist years). And then, from a general book, I would plunder the Works Cited or Bibliography like a mofo.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Good suggestion, thanks. MV is probably not right for my purposes, 'cause (as I failed to mention above) I'm trying to get an idea of the daily lives of peasants/serfs who might have worked on vineyards back in the day. But if I comb the stacks looking at the bibliographies of books on Bordeaux or what have you, I may come up with something.

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

Does country matter?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Kinda sorta? My setting is analogous to the Rhine Valley, so anything about that region would be ideal. But I'm primarily interested in the technologies and specific serf/peasant labor types and day-to-day activities of that (admittedly overlong) period.

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

Okay -
This site has section on Vinyard culture: http://www.rollintl.com/roll/rhine.htm

This site has a couple paragraphs on 17th/18th century winemaking: http://www.anyheart.org/wine/history.html

Wiki-page on german Wine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_wine

Something from this book, this one, maybe.

It'd be the same period as Romanticism, Goethe, and ETA Hoffman (who liked the vino quite a bit).

Actually all this stuff probably came up in your own Googling.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Some new ones there; thanks much!

[jonhansen.livejournal.com]

Hm. Best bets I have found:

* Wine: the 8,000-year-old story of the wine trade / Thomas Pellechia
* Burgundy to Champagne : the wine trade in early modern France / Thomas Brennan
* Phylloxera : how wine was saved for the world / Christopher Campbell
* Vintage : the story of wine / Hugh Johnson
* A short history of wine / Roderick Phillips
* Wine from Neolithic times to the 21st century / Stefan K Estreicher

Also, my library's got access to Early English Books Online, and there are a few books from the late 1600s in there. Think they're more about how to cut the vines & whatnot, but they might be of interest.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

You're awesome, Jon. Thanks!

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

P Gutenberg page for title search for "wine" here.