This paper discusses the evolution of the ideas about the consumption and production of wine from Cantillon to Quesnay. Assuming strict limits on quantities of arable land, Cantillon argues that wine production reduces the land available for the production of food and hence limits the size of the working population. He also argues that the export of wine in exchange for foreign manufactures is always detrimental to the country with the more "land intensive" wine production. These misgivings disappear in physiocratic theory due mainly to the assumption that the introduction of capital intensive techniques and specialization will afford great gains in agricultural productivity. These diering views constitute early theories of the optimal use of natural resources.