A very tasty collection
Large early English delftware posset pot circa 1695-1700, in bright polychrome enamels with birds perched among flowering branches, applied with two double roll handles topped with snakes. Sold last month for £4,200 earlier posset cup and they too are similar in design and shape. They were used (surprise) for serving posset, which was made with hot milk, mixed with ale, wine, or spirits, usually flavoured with spices and favoured particularly as a nightcap.
Varieties of the recipes were served to invalids and infants.
The main difference between the two, however, is that the posset cup tended to be somewhat deeper and came with a lid (the specialist would call this a “cover”).
However, you’ll find porringers without lids and posset cups with spouts, and all the above come in a variety of materials aside from silver including wood, pewter, glass, horn, porcelain and gold.
But back to wine tasters. Or were they used simply to serve spices or condiments rather than a device for the wine connoisseur?
As I said, you could spend a lifetime researching the subject, which is what Jeremy Hebblethwaite has done, forming in the process one of the most comprehensive collections, to be offered at auction later this month.
Often mis-attributed to Shakespeare, a couplet from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam sums up the function of the tastevin or wine taster.
“The wine-cup is the little silver well/Where truth, if truth there be, doth dwell.” If only.
The shallow form of these relatively uncommon little cups was intended to demonstrate a wine’s clarity and quality, their often convex base permitting the maximum amount of light to penetrate the wine, so that the taster can see any cloudiness or sediment.
Often produced in silver or glazed ceramic so as not to affect taste, later decorative examples were produced in a variety of other media.
In his research papers, Mr Hebblethwaite writes that wine tasters have three roles: “Firstly, they are for tasting wine from the barrel to see if it is ready to be bottled. Secondly, for the sommelier or host to taste the wine to see that it is as it should be, before offering it to the diner, and for the king or queen’s taster to see that the wine is not poisoned.
“The third role is largely decorative and for presentation. Many of the fragile ones in the collection come into this category.”
An example of the latter is the Russian “kovsch”, which was originally intended purely as a drinking vessel, several examples of which are included in the collection.
Dating back to the 10th century, when wooden versions of the single-handed scoop-shaped ladles were used for beer and mead, the kovsch developed into highly decorative objects with elaborate multi-coloured enamel decoration, much favoured by the tsars who gave examples made by their court jeweller Carl Fabergé (of imperial Easter eggs fame), to favoured guests.