Adam Smith and British Bubbles???
There’s a delightful moment in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations where he neatly demonstrates the efficacy and efficiency of free trade by talking about wine...
So why are the French buying up vineyard land in England???
By means of glasses, hotbeds, and hotwalls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine too can be made of them at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries. Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland? (WN IV.ii.15)
The argument is familiar to anyone with an interest in free trade and comparative advantage. You can grow grapes and make wine in Scotland, but Smith says you’d be foolish to do it. It is just silly (not to mention expensive and possibly disappointing) to try to devote oneself to the local production of goods that can be made with more ease and expertise elsewhere.
So it was with great interest that I recently heard that French winemakers are currently buying land in England with the intent to use it, in the future, as vineyards.
The chalk content of the land in Southern England is the same as in the Champagne region, and with concerns about a changing climate in play, the French vintners are gambling that in time, Southern England may be as good a location as France--or better--for their vineyards. On top of that, support for the locavore movement may mean that English consumers will be excited by wine grown in England in a way that they never have been before.
It’s tempting, perhaps, for some to suspect that Smith would criticize this plan to make French wine in England. After all, he destroyed the notion of doing so in his own time. But while I think Smith would be astounded by the development, I think he’d also be intrigued at the way social and environmental conditions have changed and how the winemakers have responded.
This is, after all, the strength of free markets and free trade. When it makes more sense to import wine from France to the UK, that’s what will happen. When it makes more sense to make wine in England, that’s what will happen. Cooperation across national borders, common sense, and an appreciation both for what we can do for ourselves and what our neighbors can do for us are the terroir, and the fruit of free trade. It is because of them that: “We trust with perfect security that the freedom of trade, without any attention of government, will always supply us with the wine which we have occasion for” (WN IV.i.11).