In the first important book on the wider world of wine for more than two decades, the antiques dealer Robin Butler examines the panoply of objects that enhance its enjoyment, from ceramics and furniture to glass and metal.
Butler joined his family antiques business in 1963 but his interest in wine accessories started in 1976 when he was asked to assemble a collection of historic pieces for an exhibition to celebrate the diamond jubilee of the British Antique Dealers’ Association.
Anyone who has wondered how to know a helix (spiral part of a corkscrew) from a hogget (rounded-end decanter that cannot be put down) or a cellaret from a cistern should find the answer here. It is a beautiful, intriguing and practical book that plots the history of wine paraphernalia over almost four centuries, during which time Britain has been established as the epicentre of the wine trade.
Since the only museum with a big collection of wine accessories (Harveys in Bristol) was closed in 2002, this book fills a valuable illustrative gap with more than 700 colour images. As an example, plain undecorated decanters — often most favoured by wine enthusiasts — are depicted only pages away from those with wonderful cut decoration that allows refracted light to glisten through the wine.
Butler sets each accessory in its context. He considers why 18th-century wine glasses were so small compared with modern ones. It was not because people imbibed less. During the Georgian era, glasses were not placed on the table but kept by servants on a side table, which later became the sideboard. During dinner, drinking wine was restricted to occasions when a toast was proposed. A footman would then bring a fully charged glass to each diner and the contents taken in a single draught. Hence the smaller size.
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The horseshoe table placed near the fire was developed to place wine after dinner. Such bottles would be placed in a trolley or double coaster that would circulate between gentlemen.
The bottle or decanter slide or stand, as coasters were known pre-1898, became popular in the 1760s to protect the decanter and stop wine dribbles staining. The art of the silversmith, notably in the Rococo fashion, yielded wonderfully stylised vine foliage, while the development of wooden, pewter, horn, glass, leather and even papier-mâch? for coasters is often forgotten.
For practicality, the wine funnel makes an ideal but neglected item. While silver ones are well known, although rarely found pre-1700, ceramic examples can be enchanting. Worcester made polychrome funnels with Chinese decoration in the mid-1750s. Butler has also found glass ones.
The Single Bottle Act of 1861 allowed the sale of individual bottles and, as a result, the introduction of printed wine labels. Before then, bin labels revealed a wine’s origin. Many were generic (claret, sherry) but some stated the estate name (such as Lafite 1848). The earliest were made of lead with white-painted letters against metal, but this changed to tin-glazed earthenware by the mid to late 18th century.
Wine labels were first used in the 1730s after the horizontal binning of bottles. Today some of the names seem unusual, like Mountain (hinterland of M?laga, which was a source of sweet wine for Nelson’s fleet), Neece (presumably a phonetic spelling of Nice) and Bushby (whose origin is still unknown). Formerly called bottle tickets, usually in silver, many attest to the popularity of Portuguese wine, such as Bucellas and Lisbon. Misspelling was not unusual (“champaigne”).
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For the collector, the section on fakes and forgeries should be required reading before buying. A silver label for Madeira, the most commonly found, may be “improved” by filling the engraved name with silver solder and re-engraving it with a more collectable name. It can be detected by breathing heavily on a cold label: the solder will appear lighter than its surroundings but detection is more difficult if it has been electroplated.
Great British Wine Accessories 1550-1900 by Robin Butler (Brown & Brown, £65)