Description:
English delft wine bottle labelled in blue "SACK 1650", with a line extending from the "1" in "1650" to a paraph or flourish below. "SACK" is the term used in England in the 17th century for yellow and white wines imported from southern Europe, particularly Spain and the Canary Islands. The derivation of the term, "sack", which is the most common label seen on delft wine bottles, remains uncertain, but it may be related to the terms 'sec' or 'secco', meaning dry. Dates may note when the bottle was filled from the barrels in which it was imported or the date of a New Year's gift. A typical example of mid-17th century wine bottles, the bottle has a globular, squat shape with a narrow banded neck, strap handle with a tapered tail, and flared base with an unglazed foot rim. During that time wine was traditionally drunk young and not allowed to mature. These containers served to transport wine from the cask to the table. Cork or a parchment cover and string sealed any remaining contents of the bottle. These delftware wine bottles were quickly outmoded by more durable black glass wine bottles by the 1670's, as glass production increased. According to Jonathan Horne, 1/23/95, these bottles are okay and not refired. Many of all-white bottles were refired with additional inscriptions and dates in the 1920s. Vin sec, or dry wine, was identified as early as 1632 as the French equivalent of "sacke," but this may in fact be an inappropriate translation. In the 17th century, the German sekt referred to a type of sweet wine. The same meaning is apparent in Shakespeare's Henry VIII, where, in a speech decreeing price limitations, "Malmeseis Romeneis Sakkes nor other swete Wynes" are mentioned. Based on much written documentation, many different types of sack-or at least sack from different places of origin-were available from the 16th century onward. In 1623 Gervase Markham writes in The English Housewife, "Your best Sacks are of Seres in Spaine, your smaller of Galicia and Portugal; your strong Sacks are of the Ilands of the Canaries, and of Malligo." In some cases, the name of the wine incorporated the title of its place of origin: "Canary sack" (or "Canary," also known as "palm-sack"), and "Malaga sack" (or "Malago"). "Sherry-sack" also was a popular title. According to his diary, Samuel Pepys "drank some raspberry sack and eat some sausages" at "the Greyhound in Fleet Street," London, in November 1661. Pepys also knew the hazards of consuming too much of the liquor. He writes, in early January 1662, that on hearing that his servant, William Hewer, had gone to bed ill, "I sent for him out of his bed; and he rose and came up to me, and I appeared very angry and did tax him with being drunk; and he told [me] that he had been ... At the Dolphin and drank a Quart of sack, but that his head did ake before he went out."Some wine drinkers aged their wines in bottles, rather than simply using such vessels as decanters. One bottle of sack is said to have been found by some labourers, in August, 1735, whilst draining a fish-pond at Hempstead, Herts., embedded in mud at least three feet deep. The mouth of the bottle was waxed over, and the wine perfectly good when tasted; but decay had nearly destroyed the cork. Based on their dates, these vessels were made in Southwark, where delftware factories were active at Montague Close, Pickleherring, Rotherhithe. Recent excavations at Hermitage Wharf also add Wapping to the list of possibilities. The bottle shapes ultimately derive from Continental "greybeard" or "Bellarmine" jugs in salt-glazed brown stoneware. Scholars have said that wine was a frequent gift at the new year and that the dates refer to the year of the gift not the vintage of the wine.
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