Nostalgia: How tide turned from brown ale to fine wine

3rd December 1934: Hundreds of barrels of wine laid out for inspection before being transferred to vaults and warehouses at the Wine Crescent, London Docks. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

In a nation known for its brown ale, the consumption of fine wine was until recent times the province of the upper middle classes. These pictures from the archive recall a time before supermarkets, when a connoisseur had to have a nose for not only the right claret but also the best vintner.

The system of licenced wine selling was established by William Gladstone in 1860, and the future Prime Minister hoped it might become a “rich man’s luxury” no longer.

But it took the post-war democratisation of grocery shopping wrought by the supermarkets to turn the tide away from beer. Today, more alcohol is consumed at home than in pubs, and the import of cheap plonk from Europe has fuelled a new appreciation of the grape. As of two years ago, the average Briton consumed the equivalent of 108 bottles a year – more than almost anywhere else in the western world, except France.

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circa 1940: A man purchasing a bottle of wine in a wine merchants. (Photo by Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Nostalgia: How tide turned from brown ale to fine wine

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