Pity, pity, it’s too late

Guten Morgen.

With Friendsgiving wrapped, and not satisfied with the amount of social activity for the week, I put together a (relatively smaller) cultural outing to Beethoven at the Philharmonie as a post-Friendsgiving recovery. Class and elegance all the way, baby 💅🏻

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Some of you may know that I have started playing piano again after an effectively 20-odd-year hiatus, and am currently working on Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, movement by movement (the last one is just epic). So, I have been in a Beethoven kind of mood as of late.

(Storytime sidebar: the story of the woman behind Moonlight.)

And since I am a total nerd, I thought: I wonder if Beethoven drank? And if he did, what? And what did he detest? He was an eccentric, monomaniacal, funny, short and stubborn MF so he must have surely been super judgy discerning. I needed to know.

And so, for today’s post I will talk about Beethoven and his relationship to wine: the role it played in his life, his favorites (and not-so-favorites), and how it may (or may not!) have led to his deafness and demise.

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In the beginning

Ludwig van Beethoven was born into a musical family with connections to the wine trade. His great-great-grandfather, Guillaume, had been a wine merchant in Antwerp. His grandfather, Ludwig the Kapellmeister, had also dealt in wine. His father, Johann the Court Singer, also tried his hand as a wine merchant but was more successful as an alcoholic and abusive father who drank away the family assets.

Lil’ Ludwig didn’t take on the wine trade but did indeed drink wine himself, about one liter per day which—contrary to what others have said about that—in and of itself is rather unremarkable. Later we’ll see about the contested assertion on how exactly drinking impacted his health.

So… what did he drink?

Let’s start with LL’s faves. His documented preferences were Riesling (specifically from Rheingau), Champagne, Austrian whites, and Tokaji. I have to say, he is my kind of guy.

LL spent a lot of time in the Heurigen (wine taverns) in the wine villages outside of Vienna and liked their “crisp Austrian white wine” which is thought to have been a field blend, or “Gemischter Satz”.

His appreciation for Heurigen and their wines led to establishing a residence in Heiligenstadt, one of the wine villages outside of Vienna whose Heurigen he frequented. It is here where he penned the so-called Heiligenstadt Testament on 6 October 1802, the famous unsent letter to his brothers Carl and Nikolaus Johann conveying his despair over his progressive deafness.

On the flip side, LL was less enthused by Viennese wines, specifically from Vöslau and Gumpoldskirchen, which are typically red and which his doctor, Dr. Malfatti, prescribed. (He often referred to the wine in his letters as “Krumpholz-Kirchen”.)

Illustrating his zeal for Viennese reds, LL once wrote to his friend, Nikolaus Zmeskall, “Let us meet at seven this evening at the Schwann and drink more of their disgusting red wine.” Zum weißen Schwann was a tavern in the Neuer Markt, which purportedly served rough, local hooch from the foothills of the Kahlenberg at the eastern end of the Vienna Woods.

Blame it on the alcohol?

How exactly did Beethoven’s wine consumption impact his health?

History attributes LL’s death to cirrhosis due to high alcohol consumption, citing references that he drank about a liter of wine a day. As Prof. Dr. Anton Neumayer wrote, "Beethoven's cirrhosis of the liver (as the cause of death) is almost certainly the result of damage caused by regular alcohol consumption." His autopsy also concluded his death was due to cirrhosis of the liver, with pancreatitis and peritonitis (an infection of the inner lining of the stomach) as contributing factors. 

On the face of it, one liter per day sounds like a lot. Some context here is useful:

First, people drank alcoholic beverages on the regular since water was not safe to drink. Everyone, including women and children, drank wine and beer, and daily personal consumption in Vienna had been about one liter/day.

Second, the ABV % of said alcoholic beverages was not as high as today.

So it seems either Beethoven and the majority of people in Vienna were getting sh*tfaced as a practical matter to avoid daily runs (or worse) or the quantity of his drinking was actually not a huge deal.

Interestingly, new evidence has emerged that it is rather likely the quality of the wine he consumed and not the quantity of alcohol he drank that led to his demise. A toxicology report in 2013 of his hair revealed poisonous concentrations of lead at the time of his death.

Granted people back then were exposed to more lead than today (think: lead crystal, etc) the amount of lead in his hair could not be explained by that type of exposure alone. Enter: litharge.

Litharge is a mineral form of lead monoxide that was often used then to “correct” harsh wines. One imagines the crappy wines LL drank required such adulteration, possibly even the very Gumpoldskirchen that his doctor prescribed. (I am reminded of the 1980s Antifreeze Scandal, which led to the collapse of the Austrian wine industry.)

Regular consumption of lead-tainted wine would explain the toxic levels of lead in his system, as well as the myriad health complications he had. It therefore seems probable that his death was caused by lead poisoning and not alcohol.

But wait, there’s more! Other research has linked the cause of LL’s deafness to prolonged lead poisoning from tainted wine, too. Eliminating historically-suspected causes, such as cochlear ostosclerosis, autoimmune hearing loss, and syphilis, along the way. So.

The last sip

It seems, when left to his preferences, that Lil’ Ludwig was a bit of boujee wino until his dying day. In the final stretch of his life, he wrote to his publisher, Schott Söhne of Mainz, to send good Rheingau Riesling. 22 February 1827:

"My doctor prescribes me very good old Rhine wine to drink, send me a small number of bouteilles."

And:

"I am allowed to drink Champagne... At first (Dr.) Malfatti wanted only Mosel but he assered there was none genuine to be obtained here; he therefore himself gave me several bottles of Krumpholz-Kirchen and claims that it is the best for my health, since no Mosel is to be had. Pardon me for being a burden, and ascribe it to my helpless condition.”

LL was not having it with the Gumpoldskirchen. I imagine his thoughts, “If there’s no Mosel Riesling, then bring me Champagne! Or Rheingau!”

Schott dispatched some bottles of "precious Rüdesheim mountain wine from 1806", arriving on 24 March 1827. Upon receiving the wines, LL realized he was too ill to be able to drink it, and murmured his alleged last words: "Pity, pity, it’s too late." Ludwig van Beethoven died on 26 March in the afternoon.

Yes, Lil’ Ludwig drank until the end, but it seems unlikely that he was a real boozer. Imagine living in a time when “breakfast wine” was actually legit because drinking microbe-infested water would kill you and doctors prescribed wine as a medical treatment.

RIP LL. You understood that life was too short to drink bad wine. And—at least in this corner of the world—your alcoholic reputation is vindicated.

Lil’ sips 📆

Upcoming tastings and events! Tell them Deborah from Third Place Wine sent you 😉 

15 Nov @ 18:30 (London): WSET Burgundy series, part 1: whites. £100. Register with WSET.

21 Nov @ 19:00 (London): Feeling rich? This Champagne reception, 5-course dinner and 2000 - 2020 vertical tasting of Domaine G. Roumier’s Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru is here for you. £7,000. Register with FINE+RARE.

22 Nov @ 18:30 (Luxembourg): Apéro with Elio Ottin, tasting Petite-Arvine with Fontina d’Alpage. €25. Register with In Vino Gildas.

23 Nov @ 19:30 (Luxembourg): Evening with Jean-Marc Sélèque, 4 Champagnes and their pairs. €180. Email Flûte Alors! [email protected].

28 Nov @ 18:30 (London): Berry Bros & Rudd Port tasting with the Symingtons. A walking tasting of 17 exceptional wines. £195. Register with BBR.

8 Dec @ 19:30 (London): The Annual Icons Tasting is a flight of 8 boujee, iconic wines. £120. Register with Theatre of Wine.

9 Dec @ 18:00 (Luxembourg): TPW 🚀Flight Club🚀 Israeli white wines. Food will be served. Minimum donation €100, 100% of proceeds will go to non-profits in Israel. More info & to register via the events page.

Don’t see your city? Want to promote your event? Email [email protected] with subject: “Lil’ sips”

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