Cork stoppers?

 Cork making from Diderot.

1700 - 1730 cork screw.

Cork Press.

A Cooper's Cork Bung Punch.

 1712 Bottle Corks. www.aia.umd.edu/seeking_liberty/RTwine_tobacco.html;


18th Century Bottle Corks.

How corks are made.

www.wineanorak.com/corks_part1.htm

However, we need to fast-forward to around 1660, when a French Benedictine monk by the name of Dom Pérignon first used cork for the purpose for which its name has become indelibly linked – as 
a stopper for wine bottles. According to legend, this monk was responsible for making sparkling wine at the Abbey of Sainte-Vannes in the Champagne region of northern France, and was having trouble keeping in the wooden plugs soaked in olive oil that were the stopper of choice at the time. He noticed that compressed cork returns to its original shape when pressure is released, making it ideal for wine bottles.



The practice boomed among the winemakers of Europe, and there’s evidence of cork stoppers being widely used in Portugal during the mid-18th century, when cylindrical bottles with 
a uniform neck were first used for port wine in Oporto. Strict laws governing cork production have been in place 
in Portugal for more than 200 years. Cultivation is banned uphill from 
water courses, for instance. But more importantly, bark must only be harvested from mature, healthy trees and a gap 
of at least nine years must separate harvests from an individual tree. www.geographical.co.uk/Magazine/Staying_power_-_Apr_13.html

The first references to cork date back to 3000 BC in China, where it was used in fishing tackle. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians and Persians were also familiar with the properties of cork, but it was not until man started to produce wine that it appeared as the most suitable material for closing the containers used to preserve it.

www.trefinos.es/historia/historia_eng.html

“You should put it into round bottles with narrow mouths, and then stopping them close with corks, set them in a cold cellar up to the waist in sand, and be sure that the corks be fast tied in with strong pack thread, for fear of rising out and taking vent, which is the utter spoil of the ale.”

A household advice book 1615. corkcutter.info/page/view/the-history-of-cork-use

The main products were stoppers for jars and bottles. There seems to have been a high level of diversity in the size and quality available. The household accounts of Petworth House (a stately home in Sussex) over a period of fifty years from 1755 show payment for quart, pint, best long, best long pint, best white, short long and fruit corks. These were all acquired from a firm of London corkcutters. They were supplied in canvas bags and paid for by the gross (or the dozen in the case of fruit corks.) A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1736 complained that on trying to buy a gross of best corks, he was offered some that were “indifferent such as I would not have bottled up water gruel with.” On being challenged, the corkcutter returned “you didst not ask for good corks before” and brought out some fit for use. “Beyond these he had his very good corks, his fine corks, his superfine… seven degrees in all.”

corkcutter.info/page/view/what-did-corkcutters-make


The Use of Sealing Wax to Seal the Tops of Corked Wine Bottles in the 17th & 18th Centuries.

An early example, a wine bottle dating to 1727, is reported to have the cork covered with wax and cloth and held down by a string attached under the string rim (No@l Hume 1958b: 774, 776). The use of parchment, paper, and bladders, sometimes impregnated with other substances such as wax or resin, to cover mouths of bottles and jars was common in the 18th century particularly for home bottling (McKearin and Wilson 1978: 249-52). For bottling cider Rees recommended that ••.the corks be driven very tightly into the necks of the bottles, tied down with small strong twine or wire, and well secured with melted rosin, or other material of the same nature•••(Rees 1819: Vol. 10, Cyder).

sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/cylindricalenglishwinebook.pdf



It has been postulated that this was because the main supply route was via the Iberian Peninsula which had been conquered by the Moors in the 8th Century. Paintings from that era depict twists of bung and cloth or leather being used, sometimes with sealing wax to make an air-tight closure.

www.nicks.com.au/vintage-school-2-14-76.1456

The making of sealing wax sticks for the use of sealing letters and other documents was only a small part of the sealing wax industry from the end of the eighteenth century into the first decades of the twentieth century. Though of much lesser quality than the sealing wax made to seal documents, this sealing wax, which was used to seal corked wine bottles, was made in large quantities. Shellac, bleached or unbleached was seldom used, replaced with common pine resins. Brick dust was used as both a coloring agent and a filler, and low-grade turpentines were substituted for the top-quality Venice turpentine used for the best sealing waxes. This sealing wax was never made into sticks, it was sold in large chunks which would be melted in a pot for use. The neck of a corked bottle of wine would be dipped into the melted wax, which hardened quickly on the cold glass of the bottle. This rapid hardening could make the sealing wax so brittle that it would break up even when lightly touched. The addition of more turpentine to the mixture would make the sealing wax less brittle, but it could have the undesirable effect of making the sealing wax sticky, even in very cool temperatures. The best bottle sealing wax had some shellac added to the mix. Though this raised the cost slightly, it also resulted in a wax which did not become too brittle in cold weather or too sticky in warm weather. Though it was illegal to sell wine in bottles during the Regency, many vintners and wine sellers who bottled wine for their customers did seal those bottles with this bottle sealing wax.

Sealing wax was also used to seal wine bottles, and protect the cork from the air until the wine was opened.

regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/sealing-wax/



Keith.