Background to enotourism
19th century travellers’ description and classification of Spanish
wines
Oenological tourism as we know it today is deeply related to the
historical changes that took place in the first part of the 19th century,
affecting the processes of cultivation, production and trade of wine in
Spain. This work aims to provide a vision of wine and its sociocultural
environments through the gaze of the 19th century traveller Cyrus Redding.
Redding’s account is as documentary as it is literary, and his data provides
an invaluable source of information about the vineyards, the varieties of
grapes and wines, the processes of elaboration, production, packaging,
transport, and so many more relevant socio-cultural, historical and economic
issues related to wine. Of special interest to linguists and translators is
the contribution of an invaluable terminology database.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: Wine tourism
- 2.Travel literature and wine tourism
- 2.1From travel narratives to travel literature
- 3.Spanish wine seen by foreign travellers
- 3.1The wine in the Spain of the 19th century
- 3.2Cyrus Redding’s A History and Description of Modern
Wines
(1833)
- 4.Conclusions
-
Notes
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References