By Kerry Gonzalez
Continuing our blog series on artifacts recovered from our Riverfront Park excavations in Fredericksburg, we would like to highlight the wine bottle seal pictured below. Marking wine bottles with personalized seals were done near the end of the bottle making process. While the fully formed wine bottle was still warm the glassblower would affix a ‘glob’ of glass to the bottle and emboss it with a seal. We are asking for your help in dating this particular artifact. We know the seal recovered at the Riverfront Park site is from a bottle of Chateau Lafite that dates between 1810 and 1850. We also believe the “B&G” in relief in the center of the seal represents Barton and Guestier, a wine house in Bordeaux, France that at one time unsuccessfully attempted to acquire Lafite.
Wine seals marked with Chateau Lafite have been found at several estates in the United States, including Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s desires to aquire Chateau Lafite wines were so enthusiastic that he wrote a letter to the president of bordeaux parlement, M. Pichard, on February 22, 1788, requesting 250 bottles (Hailman 2006:148).
“While passing through Bordeaux of May last year, I have the honor of appearing at your house to pay my respects and to thank you for all the kindness you showed to Mr. Barclay, our Consul (in Paris) in the unpleasant affair that happened to him in Bordeaux. In hastening to renew my thanks, I take the liberty of adding therto the request of a favor. The excellent wines named de la Fite are of your vineyard. If you have any of the 1784 vintage, and would accomadte me with 250 bottles, I would be infinitely obliged to you. If it would be possible to have them bottled and packed at your estate, it would doubtless be a guarantee that the wine was genuine, and the drawing off and so forth well done”
Now you know as much as we do about this artifact, and we hope some of you wine lovers out there have thoughts as to a specific time period for this interesting piece. Please contact us through Facebook with any comments or suggestions!
References:
Hailman, John
2006 Thomas Jefferson on Wine. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson.
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