Welcome to the first in a series of videos about some of the great bottles owned, sold (and sometimes drunk) by Arden Fine Wines.
The empty bottles on the mantelpiece of our Mayfair office are souvenirs of memorable tastings and events that I’ve attended over the years.
I can mostly remember where and when a bottle was opened and served, who I was with – and what the wine tasted like.
This dark olive green, slightly lopsided pint bottle with an Inner Temple seal on it is a recent acquisition, gifted very generously to me from my good friend Tim Pearson, whose Seven Springs Vineyards wines we have pleasure in serving and selling in Mayfair and elsewhere.
It is, as far as I can tell, a good 200 years old. I have seen photos of similar examples that are dated to about 1820.
Inner Temple Bottle 
Inner Temple Bottle 
Inner Temple Bottle
This Regency bottle is very similar to a modern Bordeaux bottle, cylindrical with sloping shoulders and a long neck, though the neck here is slightly bulbous with a smooth, tooled lip.
The glass is lead glass, so it’s quite heavy for its size.
It’s in very good condition. I’ve found one small chip on the lip but otherwise it’s perfect.
The bottle was mouth-blown and free-blown (i.e. without a mould), which means inconsistencies between bottles and imperfections with individual bottles. The surface of the glass is textured and grainy, with a few air bubbles apparent, especially in the punt of the bottle.
And the shape is amusingly vague. The shoulders are lopsided, as shown below.
There’s a seam just below the shoulders, so I think that the bottle is made of two parts, with the bottle cylinder made separately to the shoulders and neck, which I guess were then attached.
Inside the punt is also the pontil, where the mouth-blown glass bottle was snapped off and then ground to make it smooth.
At the base of the bottle is a seal of the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers and judges must belong in order to practise law. The Inner Temple was established in the 12th century.
In the early 19th century, glass bottles were still so expensive that – no matter how precious the wine – the bottle was always worth more. So bottles were re-used many times, and the “label” on the outside indicated the owner of the bottle, not the origin of the wine. The owners of glass bottles were the aristocracy or large organisations, like the Inner Temple.
Wines were at this time shipped and stored in barrels, not bottles. Glass bottles were not much available in England until the mid-17th century.
Although the bottle is Bordeaux-shaped, it could have contained all sorts of wines over its working life, refilled and recorked as required.
Stuart George | Founder & Managing Director | Arden Fine Wines