Benjamin Franklin Papers

Wine Cellar Inventory, [1–30 September 1782]

Wine Cellar Inventory8

D:9 American Philosophical Society

[September 1–30, 1782]

Etat du vin au 1er. Sept. 1782 Nombre des Bouteilles [Total consumed]
Bierre de Paris { 83 20
18
 
vin de Champ. mouss.1 24
Cidre 138
Eau de Vie d’andaye 24
Vin ordinaire 153. 41
Vin de madere 216½ 9
Champ non mouss. 119
Bordeaux rouge 127 11
Vin de Cherry 157
Bierre d’angre.2 { 67 4
35
Rum 4
Champe. Couleur de Rose 140

Notation: Wine in Septr. 82

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

8Unlike the inventory we published in XXVIII, 455–6, this chart of the “Depense journaliere du Vin pendant le mois de 7bre. 1782” was filled in. The state of the cellar was noted in the lefthand column; days of the month were written across the top, and the number of bottles consumed per day was marked. A final column indicated the total number of bottles consumed. We print here the figures from the first and last columns. As the chart shows (see illustration on the facing page), the household generally consumed one bottle of vin ordinaire per day, except for Sundays, when BF entertained.

The only other surviving inventory is for December, 1782. It shows a very different pattern. As of Dec. 3, the daily bottle of ordinary table wine was replaced by a bottle of red champagne. (At the beginning of December, 212 bottles of “Champagne rouge” and 190 of “champagne blanc” were listed.) No Sunday dinners are evident. The only days on which more than one bottle was consumed were Dec. 12 and 13, when there was an assortment of red and white champagne, Parisian and English beer, madeira, and Bordeaux. The December inventory, also kept by L’Air de Lamotte, is at the Hist. Soc. of Pa.

9In L’Air de Lamotte’s hand.

1Champagne mousseux (sparkling).

2English beer.

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