From Marx onwards, radical politics and a love of the grape have a distinguished vintage, discovers Josh Sutton
Better known for his research and writings on economic issues than his reputation as a bacchanal, Karl Marx could nonetheless claim a viticultural heritage, hailing as he did from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer region of what is now modern Germany (Prussia at the time).
Karl’s parents, like many other prosperous families in the town of Trier, owned several vineyards. Marx himself was known to enjoy the odd drop, and in later life warned others: “be careful to trust a person who does not like wine”. While at university in Bonn, he frequented the student union bar, and was imprisoned on at least one occasion for drunkenness. He also reputedly took part in a duel, though whether or not that too was a result of his over enthusiastic participation in student nightlife is unclear.
It was the conditions under which labourers of the wine trade in the region toiled at that time, which arguably set the young Marx’s mind to thinking along the political and economic lines for which he is famed. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, the wine-producing region of the Mosel Valley fell under Prussian administration. Whilst an initial halcyon period of high taxation on non-Prussian wines drove up the prices of Mosel wines, this economic bubble soon burst when, in 1824, the administration removed all tariffs on German-made wines. Those vintners who had invested heavily in new equipment, vineyards and labour were left at a severe economic disadvantage as the price of wine effectively fell.
In other words, Marx’s Das Kapital owes more than one might imagine to the machinations of the wine trade. Consequently Marx’s writing was to influence the lives of two of this country’s most prominent left-leaning oenophiles, both of whom were born almost a century after the laissez faire tax régime wrought economic havoc in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer wine making region.
Edmund Penning-Rowsell and Cyril Ray began an unwitting career as a double act in 1961. Both known for their down-to-earth approach to wine writing, as well as their left wing political views, they even shared a birthday of March 16. Penning-Rowsell and Ray first worked together, in print at least, in the fourth edition of that celebrant of all things oenological, The Compleat Imbiber.
Both Ray and Penning-Rowsell came late in life to their respective wine-writing careers. Ray, having embarked on a career in journalism at the Manchester Guardian and later moving on to the Times was invited to edit the first edition of Compleat Imbiber in 1956. Originally an in-house newsletter produced for clients of Gilbeys Wine Merchants, the Imbiber soon grew in popularity and morphed into an annual compendium of wine and food writing enjoyed by a broader public. Arguably the jumping-off point for both their careers as wine writers, it also provided a spotlight for many other aspiring and emerging wine and food writers at the time. Elizabeth David, Andre Simon, Harry Waugh, Hugh Johnson, Derek Cooper all appeared between the covers over the fifteen years that the Compleat Imbiber fell under Cyril Ray’s editorship.
As well as a mutual birthday, their shared political leanings appear to have stemmed from similar experiences, as both of their student careers were cut short by arduous financial family circumstances faced during the national economic downturn of the 1930s. In Penning-Rowsell’s case, he never got as far as the dreaming spires of Oxford. Having left Marlborough College and taken a position as journalist at The Morning Post, he then went on to work in publishing. With the onset of the Second World War, Penning-Rowsell worked in an aircraft factory in Swindon, where he soon became actively involved in trade union organisaton.
Cyril Ray faced similar circumstances, forced to leave Jesus College, Oxford after just one year, he took up a position with the Manchester Guardian. During the war, Ray was appointed war correspondent and served time covering the fighting in Italy. After the war he was posted as foreign correspondent in Moscow for two years.
Like Marx, almost a century before them, their left-leaning bent did nothing to prevent a growing appreciation of fine wines, and a desire to spread their enthusiasm for this emerging new field to the masses. With the war over, Penning-Rowsell had returned to his career in publishing and was working for Studio Vista in 1961 when it took over the publication of the Compleat Imbiber from its original publishers, Putnam. It was perhaps here that Penning-Rowsell and Ray’s career paths crossed. It is not difficult to imagine a pair of amateurs of wine, sharing a common birthday and similar political views striking up a friendship that was to last for some time. Their approach to wine carried commonality too, each with a desire to broaden the appreciation beyond the traditionally stuffy and exclusive clique traditionally associated with love of the grape. Cyril Ray held that “a lot of rot is written about wine”, while Penning-Rowsell once declared that “the only thing worse than a show-off wine customer is a dogmatic, omniscient wine merchant”. Both men realised the pitfalls of adopting a know-it-all approach to their subject.
Through their efforts within the pages of the Compleat Imbiber, Cyril at the editorial helm collating verse, prose, anecdote and illustration, and Edmund offering insight into what wines to buy, drink and lay down for the following years, both men established themselves as prominent voices in their field. Penning-Rowsell went on to become the longest standing President of The Wine Society, serving from 1964 up until his retirement in 1987. His appointment, also in 1964, as wine correspondent for the Financial Times cemented his position as a leading and influential figure in the world of wine writing. Cyril Ray’s credentials were by then well established too, and over a period of some thirty five years, Ray wrote in excess of twenty books on wines and spirits, including detailed histories of Bolinger, Lafite and Warre’s Port.
Both Ray and Penning-Rowsell’s influence on wine writers today is lasting. Jancis Robinson, Penning-Rowsell’s successor at the FT, describes his wonderful capacity for “combining non-conformism with strict adherence to certain protocols”. As if to confirm Robinson’s observations, Edward maintained his subscription to Marxism Today throughout his tenure with the Financial Times.
With their deaths, Ray in 1991 and Penning-Rowsell in 2002, it’s true to say that the world of wine lost a key double act, which has yet to be followed in its originality. They were gentlemen, conservative in all but their politics, who lived by their convictions. After all, surely wine tastes as fine on the palate of the proletariat as it does on that of the bourgeoisie.
This insight into Marx’s early years was gleaned from an essay by Stephen Muse (2012).
Josh Sutton is author of the excellent camping cookbook, The Guyrope Gourmet. You can visit his website at www.joshsutton.co.uk
