This cylindrical bottle from the 1780s represents a crucial breakthrough in the evolution of the wine bottle.

The History of Wine in 100 Bottles 007

The introduction of the modern cylindrical wine bottle

The eighteenth-century saw the traditional globe-shaped vessel being replaced with a longer bottle. This new cylindrical shape allowed for easier shipping and stacking. It also helped the relatively new practice of “binning”, whereby large numbers of bottles could be laid on their sides, keeping the cork moist and allowing the wine to mature.

In 1634, the English, having mastered the use of powerful coal furnaces, were the first to manufacture sturdy bottles of black glass, an

invention attributed to British diplomat Sir Kenelm Digby. In its earliest days, the glass bottle more resembled a flattened sphere, ensuring stable balance on surfaces, with a relatively long neck providing a solid grip.

The last years of the eighteenth century witnessed an important development in the evolution of the shape of the wine bottle. Early eighteenth-century bottles were bulbous, broad bottomed and short necked. They could stand upright but could not be laid on their sides. Their main purpose was to carry wine from the taverner’s cask to the table and, once empty, they would be sent back to be re-filled. Regular wine drinkers had their own bottles made by glass blowers complete with a glass seal attached to the side that displayed the owners name, initials, or heraldic device. When early eighteenth-century wine lovers were ordering up their bottles from glass blowers, whimsy and personal taste won the day. Bottles could be onion-shaped, flask-shaped, or bladder-shaped, in varying sizes and lengths of neck.

Over the decades, as production techniques evolved, bottles became progressively slimmer and more elongated, with longer, less tapered necks. By the 1780s, bottles had become sufficiently cylindrical to be stored on their sides. The relatively new practice of “binning”, or storing corked wine bottles on their sides, made necessary the change in bottle shape from squatter, wide-based bottles (bladder or onion shaped) to the taller, cylindrical bottles still used today.

A typical, onion-shaped wine bottle from 1726. In the first half of the 1700s, bottles were made for standing

and serving, not for storing and maturing wine.

The evolution of the wine bottle.

c. 1640s c. 1660s c. 1690s c. 1720s c. 1750s c. 1780s

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008 The History of Wine in 100 Bottles

Château Mouton Rothschild The first estate to bottle and label its own wine

Château Mouton Rothschild, just a few acres of vines in the middle of the Médoc, 30 miles northwest of the city of Bordeaux, is one of the

world’s finest wine producers. Château Mouton Rothschild dates to 1853, when

Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild, an English member of the Rothschild family, purchased a Bordeaux wine property in Pauillac called Château Brane-Mouton. As was the custom of the day, the new owner renamed it using his name. Château Mouton Rothschild was born. In 1922, Phillipe de Rothschild, Baron Nathaniel’s great-grandson, fell in love with the estate and took the future of Mouton into his own hands.

Until 1924, as in every vineyard in the Médoc, Château Mouton Rothschild wine was sold in casks to a merchant in Bordeaux who became responsible for everything that happened afterwards: maturing, bottling, labeling and marketing. With no rights over the finished product, the owner took little interest in the appearance of the bottle. In 1924 Baron Philippe de Rothschild made a decision, revolutionary at the time, to bottle the entire harvest before it left the property. From that time on, the label took on a new importance and a new function: it became the trademark, the proof of origin, the guarantee of quality and the signature of the vineyard.

From 1946 onwards, contemporary artists were commissioned to create original artworks for their labels. By commissioning great artists such as Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall, Château Mouton Rothschild has allowed an important French wine label the possibility to be exciting and modern, while retaining great tradition and heritage. The idea of using artists to exhibit their work on packaging has been imitated since, but Château Mouton Rothschild was the first to do it in this way and is still the most dramatic and original.

Six Château Mouton Rothschild vintages with artist-designed

labels. From left to right: Joan Miró (1969), Marc Chagall

(1970), Wassily Kandinsky (1971), Serge Poliakoff (1972),

Pablo Picasso (1973), Robert Motherwell (1974).

Until 1924, wine was sold in casks to merchants who were responsible for everything that happened afterwards: maturing, bottling, labeling and marketing. Château Mouton Rothschild changed the history of wine making by becoming the first vineyard to bottle its entire harvest before it left the property.

1924 jj

The History of Wine in 100 Bottles 009

The first Château Mouton Rothschild label from 1924. Jean Carlu’s

design is one of the greatest examples of Cubism in commercial art.

Dr. Konstantin Frank ignited the “Vinifera Revolution,” a movement that forever changed the course of winegrowing in the Finger Lakes and the United States.

Founded in 1962, Dr. Frank’s winery pioneered the introduction of vinifera wines to the Finger Lakes region of New York.

The History of Wine in 100 Bottles 011

In 1952, a man called Konstantin Frank, took the bus up from New York City to Geneva, in the heart of New York’s main wine region, the Finger Lakes – a

group of deep glacial lakes just south of Lake Ontario, whose relatively warm waters allow vineyards to be planted on their shores. He was determined to prove that the classic grape varieties of Europe could work in New York State.

And he wasn’t just Konstantin Frank. He was Doctor Konstantin Frank, and he was headed for the State Experiment Station in Geneva to try to get a job working on vine research. He should have been the perfect candidate. He had a doctorate from Odessa University in the Ukraine, and his thesis had been on growing high quality Vitis Vinifera grapes in cold climates. And by cold, he meant cold. He’d grown vinifera in Russia where the temperature went to 40 below. He didn’t get the job, though; they put him to work hoeing blueberries. Maybe the fact he could hardly speak English didn’t count in his favour. But word of this crazy Ukranian guy got to Charles Fournier, boss of a wine company called Gold Seal. Fournier had been chief winemaker at Veuve Clicquot Champagne in France and had come to Gold Seal to make ‘Champagne’. He was eager to plant vinifera grapes, but didn’t know how to deal with the intense winter cold. Frank persuaded him that his Russian experience showed that in areas where the ground froze the secret was you had to find supremely hardy roots onto which you could graft the sensitive vinifera vines. Together they set off to comb the American north east, and in a convent in Quebec, Canada, they got lucky. In a climate even worse than that of New York, the convent produced wine from Pinot Noir vines one year in three. Back at Gold Seal they grafted Riesling and Chardonnay mostly, because they had hardier, cold-

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Dr. Konstantin FrankAttempts to establish European vines along the East Coast of North America were continually made, and they continually failed, for the best part of 300 years. It took a Ukrainian winemaker, who started his career in New York City as a dishwasher, to prove to the world that the Eastern United States could grow vinifera varietals.

1962 j

resistant wood, but also Gewürztraminer and Cabernet Sauvignon onto the Canadian roots. In 1957, temperatures dropped to 25° below. Even many of the native vines were killed. But the Riesling and Chardonnay on the Canadian rootstocks showed less than 10% damage, and at vintage time produced a healthy crop of 3–4 tons an acre. Frank’s biggest triumph came when his 1961 Riesling Turchenheerenauslese sweet wine was served at the White House.

In 1962 Frank established his own wine business in the warm-ish conditions next to Lake Kenka, and planted a wealth of different varieties. But freezes could still be lethal – 1980, 2003 and 2014 saw many vines killed. Every time the vinifera revolution cautiously moves forward with Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, maybe some Syrah, nature strikes back, so that even now only 15% of Finger Lakes vines are vinifera. But the vines that are now making world class wines are Rieslings on some of Dr Frank’s super-cold climate rootstocks, just as he had predicted.

Dr. Frank’s 2012 Dry Riesling – winner of the International Riesling Trophy at the Riverside

International Wine Competition.

Hammel SA is based in Mont-sur-Rolle, within the canton

of Vaud, a couple of miles from Lake Geneva. The canton of

Vaud is the second-largest producer of wine in Switzerland.

In 1972, Switzerland’s Hammel SA became the

first winemaker to use screw caps.

The History of Wine in 100 Bottles 013

Hammel SAThe first winery to use screw caps

For many wine lovers, the distinctive creak and pop of opening a bottle of wine triggers associations with social intimacy, relaxation

and celebration. While the screw cap is technically hard to fault, it is also hard to deny that it lacks the drama and anticipation of opening a traditional cork-topped bottle.

The wine bottle screw cap – generic name “Stelvin” after its biggest brand – was first used in the early 1970s. The Stelvin cap was developed by French company La Bouchage Mecanique (now Rio Tinto Alcan). It was originally trialed in 1970–1971 with the Swiss wine Chasselas, which was particularly affected by cork taint, and first used commercially in 1972 for the Swiss winery Hammel SA.

Stelvin closures were adopted commercially in Australia in late 1976 but were at first met with customer resistance. It took another two decades before they were gradually reintroduced. In 2000, a group of winemakers from Australia’s Clare Valley got together and released their Riesling wines under screw cap. It was the start of a screw cap revolution that was to spread rapidly throughout New Zealand and Australia. In New Zealand, the use of screw caps jumped from 1 per cent in 2001 to 70 per cent in 2004.

The growing prevalence of screw caps as an alternative wine closure to corks has generated lots of dissent from wine consumers, many of whom avoid purchasing wines sealed with screw caps, irrelevant of what’s in the bottle. The common complaint is that screw caps look cheap, and up to a point this might be justified. Most high-priced vintages still employ cork. Wines that are built for cellaring benefit from cork, which enables the flow of oxygen into the wine, allowing the wine to evolve over time and develop secondary characteristics, including new aromas and flavors.

While natural corks might be more aesthetically pleasing than screw caps, they do pose the risk of tainting wine with fungi called TCA, which results in an undrinkable mouldy “corked” flavour. In an effort to avoid tainting, more and more winemakers are adapting to the screw cap. But while the Stelvin closure practically guarantees consistency, for the traditionalist it will never offer the joy of

sniffing a fragrant, tannin-stained cork.

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The Stelvin cap –

the wine industry’s

screw cap closure

of choice.

On 10 August 1889, Dan Rylands of Barnsley in the UK patented the screw cap. It took nearly a century before this advance in bottle and jar closures was adapted for wine bottles. Despite resistance from traditionalists, today over 90 per cent of New Zealand wine is sealed this way.

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In 2004, Corbett Canyon, the largest US

wine brand, converted all of its bottles to

Stelvin screw top closures.

The History of Wine in 100 Bottles 015

If you’ve ever been to an auction you’ll know that you can go slightly crazy when you’re bidding for something. On December 5th, 1985, at Christie’s sale

rooms in London, a battle between two men over a bottle of wine took a mere one minute thirty-nine seconds. 99 seconds, after which there was a new record for the most expensive wine in the world, the first ever wine to sell for £100,000.

In fact, it was £105,000 ($156,000), and, luckily, the guy who could afford it bought it – Christopher Forbes, son of Malcolm Forbes, one of the richest men in America. He’d flown over in a private jet from New York to buy this bottle – not bid for it, buy it. Very rich people don’t expect to be outbid. And the plane was waiting on the tarmac at Heathrow to fly the bottle straight back to New York. All in a day’s work. And this bottle had not merely smashed the world record, it had vaporised it. The previous record had been for a bottle of Château Lafite 1822, sold for $31,000 (about £21,000) in 1980. This new bottle was also a Lafite, but much more special.

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Most Expensive BottleA new record was set in 1985, when one of the richest men in the world bought a bottle of Château Lafite for a cool £105,000. But this was no ordinary vintage, it was a bottle belonging to none other than Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of America. Or was it?

1985 j

It came from the 1787 vintage – the oldest authenticated red wine ever to be sold at Christie’s. And the bottle was engraved with the letters ‘Th. J’. These are the initials of Thomas Jefferson, author of America’s Declaration of Independence, and her third President. This wasn’t wine Forbes was bidding for. It was history.

No one doubts history happened. But a lot of people have very different views about exactly what happened in history. And the appearance of this 1787 Jefferson bottle didn’t go unchallenged. Jefferson was a meticulous record-keeper – he had kept all the letters he’d ever received – 40,000 – as well as duplications of every letter he’d ever sent. Yet the Jefferson experts at Monticello in Virginia could find no record of its purchase. And it had supposedly been found in, well, let’s say, fortuitous circumstances, in Paris. A German wine collector called Hardy Rodenstock said it had been found by workers knocking down an old house who discovered a cache of ancient wines behind a false wall in the cellar. So where was this house? Rodenstock seemed strangely unwilling to give details, merely saying that the cellar was virtually hermetically sealed, at a constant temperature, which would explain the wonderful condition the bottles seemed to be in. Some less friendly experts suggested this might be part of a hidden Nazi hoard. The Nazis filched an awful lot of top wine. When the Allies liberated Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest hideout in the Alps, they found half a million bottles – including old Lafite.

Well, the cynics had a point. Rodenstock was eventually unmasked as a rogue. The great Jefferson 1787 Lafite was proved to be a fake. But by then I’m not sure it mattered. The Forbes family gave the bottle pride of place at a Jefferson exhibition they were hosting at Forbes Galleries. The bottle basked in the heat of publicity – and of a highly efficient spotlight. For a few months. And then the cork fell in.

Above: Christopher “Kip” Forbes, surrounded by a few items from his vast art collection. Left: The infamous bottle of Chateau Lafite 1787 that Kip won at Christie’s in 1985.

sterlingpublishing.com

Winemaking is as old as civilization itself, and this illuminating volume takes a unique approach to that history: by exploring 100 bottles that have had the biggest impact on the evolution of wine. Moving from the first cork tops to screw caps, renowned wine writer Oz Clarke presents such landmarks as the introduction of the cylindrical wine bottle in the 1780s; the first estate to bottle and label its own wine (formerly sold in casks to merchants only); the most expensive bottle sold at auction and the oldest unopened bottle; the change in classifications; and the creation of numerous famous vintages. Fully illustrated with photographs of bottles, labels, and other images, this is a beautiful tribute to the “bottled poetry” that is wine.

April 2015Culinary/Wine$24.95 ($27.95 Canada)Hardcover7 ¼ x 9  •  224 pages (all in color)978-1-4549-1561-4

DISCLAIMERReviewers are reminded that changes may be made in this uncorrected proof before books are printed. If any material from the book is to be quoted in a review, the quotation should be checked against the final bound book. Dates, prices, and manufacturing details are subject to change or cancellation without notice.

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A former leading West End actor, Oz Clarke is one of the world’s best-known wine experts, whose formidable reputation is based on his extensive wine knowledge and accessible, no-nonsense approach. Known for his phenomenal palate, irreverent style, accurate predictions, and enthusiasm for life in general, Oz is Britain’s most popular wine writer.

For more information, contact Lauren Tambini at (646) 688-2464 or ltambini@sterlingpublishing.com

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PUB DATE APRIL 2015