Today our wines are sold on all five continents. Fondillón can be purchased in the best delicatessens and is served in Michelin-starred restaurants around the world. Now it seems logical to us but, four hundred years ago, the considered first multinational in history, the East India Company, was already transporting and trading Alicante wine in India, Japan and China. Cumberland The Franciscan mission brought our wine to the East. Holland paved the way that England later completed and, despite the hostility that these countries showed for centuries to Western ways and customs, little by little the wine trade became normalized.
The climate and the very long distances turned those trips into true odysseys, and storms and illnesses reduced their effectiveness. The medicinal nature of Fondillón was legendary and that is why the figure of the onboard doctor was very important and "The Company" always recruited the best.
In the minutes of 1615 collected and published centuries later in the Calcutta Review (1869) he says: "The health of the Company's officers and men employed in the East Indies was, naturally, a subject often discussed in their meetings. "The flux" was a common disease for the English in India, and all remedies that seemed worthy of attention were considered very important. In 1607, lemon water and Alicante wine were recommended, not only as very suitable drinks, but as very effective against gastric acidity. Dr. John Burgis, who had repeatedly sailed with Sir Francis Drake and the Earl of Cumberland, was admitted and engaged as an outside officer of the company because of his great skill in the prevention of flux, scurvy, and fever. With the fleet sent in 1615 to the East Indies, several boxes of lemons and Alicante wine were given to each ship with written instructions for their use.
Rafael Poveda, President of the Academy of Gastronomy of the Valencian Community
Published in Alicante Information
