Richard Gralnik on tue 4 jun 96
It is a little known fact of wine making history that the early vintners
used potters to stomp their grapes. The activity of foot wedging so
closely paralleled the rhythmic motions of pressing grapes in a vat
that a natural synergy evolved. Grapes grow well in high clay content
soil so the two industries were often co-located. Early wine producers
sold their product in ceramic bottles, and potters' affinity for alcoholic
beverages is well known, and so a symbiotic relationship began.
This interdependence of potters and distillers is seen all over the world.
The partnership blossomed throughout the Bordeaux region of France where
wood kilns that fire grape vine prunings still operate today. Italian
potters from the wine country outside Rome are famous. Many an Oriental
kiln shared facilities with a sake producer. And in the United States,
the face jugs and other containers marked with the famous XXX come from
neighbors of moonshiner manufacturers in the Carolinas. In fact, there
are a number of famous potters married to descendants of a Mr. Jack Daniels.
Only in the rugged Highlands of Scotland where a lack of clay and of wood
inhibited the establishment of a ceramic industry did this complimentary
arrangement fail to take hold. However, that lack was more than offset by
the growth of the Potteries in Stoke-on-Trent in England following the
opening of the Edinburgh-Southampton railway line that passed directly
between the Wedgwood and Royal Doulton companies. There was fierce
competition for repackaging rights in the region for many years and the
rivalry continues to this day.
Richard Gralnik
ceramics historian
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