Wine Bottle Seals

In the eighteenth century, wine was most often transported in casks or glass bottles. Wine bottle fragments have been discovered archeologically across the South.  At Jamestown alone hundreds of bottle seals have been found.  Personalized glass wine bottles not only ensured that the owner received the wine meant for him, but were also a way to conspicuously consume that wine.

Nathaniel and Lewis Burwell of Fairfield Plantation in Gloucester County, Virginia, both had personalized wine bottles. As did William Dry, the wealthy collector of customs in Brunswick, North Carolina. Customized wine bottles were refilled until broken, as these sherds attest.