Photo © Rick, 2 July 2006
A Tun Of Wine
On stave and hoop the long year through
We worked with will and pleasure,
And when the cask was firm and true,
We pressed the vineyard's treasure.
Mendelssohn
Photo © Rick, 2 July 2006 |
A Tun Of Wine On stave and hoop the long year through |
AMPHORAE
A large earthenware vessel with two handles below the lip. Wine was imported
into England from Germany and Bordeaux in these large vessels prior to AD 250.
Wooden casks may well have replaced the Amphorae after this time.
TUN
Taken from Old French, the large casks used for holding and shipping wine were
called 'tuns'. The traditional French ton, the 'tonneau' was a shipment of about
200 gallons of wine. Tuns of various sizes were used throughout the Middle Ages,
with the larger casks holding in excess of 200 gallons. After the conquest,
large amounts of wine were imported into the country. When Gascony was brought
under English rule by the marriage of Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine, a flourishing
trade in wine followed. It is recorded that in the fourteenth century 20,000
tuns of wine per year were being imported into Bristol alone from Bordeaux and
Bayonne. In 1423 Henry V decreed that wine should be measured in 'tuns' of less
than 252 gallons.