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Early California Wine Bottle Collection CA - , - - 2012aug - Saloon

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:375.00 USD Estimated At:750.00 - 1,500.00 USD
Early California Wine Bottle Collection CA - , -  - 2012aug - Saloon
Invoicing and lot pick up will NOT be available at the live auction.
Very few California wine bottles from the nineteenth century are embossed with names of vintners or merchants. Even Brandy bottles, generally made with brown or amber glass are rare, but not as rare as the ubiquitous classic green bottle that holds about 1/5 gallon. For over a century, California vintners placed their wine into these green bottles. Most, if not all, had paper labels from the vintner and/or distributor. Only a few have embossed seals, applied as separate pieces of glass when the seals were hot. None have embossed bottle faces in the manner of whiskey bottles.

There are only a small handful of different California wine company “blob” seal wines known–perhaps less than 15 total specimens from about 4 different merchants. This collection is the best seen by Fred Holabird in 35 years of collecting.

Lot Includes:



Napa Valley Wine Co. (c1885-1896). There are several examples of this bottle in this collection. I would estimate that there are a total of less than 10 known today in all sizes combined. Only one has ever hit the auction block, bought by me about a decade ago. NVWC began in 1885, managed by Emil C. Priber. They produced Napa Valley wine and sold it at their warehouse in San Francisco. Priber advertised in San Francisco Directories as “growers and dealers of native wines and brandies.” Their office was 11-13 First Street, and warehouse on King Street. By 1895, the company moved to larger quarters at 453-465 Brannan. Right after this period, many of the Napa vintners grouped together and formed the Napa Valley Wine Association, and Priber was one of them.
C. Carpy, San Francisco (c1875-1892). This seal bottle dates circa 1885-1892 is perhaps one of the most important of the embossed California wine bottles. It represents a long period of ownership and production from a single vineyard in Napa. The company began in 1875 in San Francisco. They were known as Carpy & Anduran, importers of wines. By 1879, the firm had changed the order of the owner and partner names to Anduran & Co, showing Carpy and P. Van Bever as partners, producing wine from the Uncle Sam Vineyard in Napa. By 1882, they advertised themselves as “importers and jobbers of California Wines. The Uncle Sam Wine Cellar and Distillers” from Napa. Their office was at 513-517 Sacramento Street in San Francisco. Carpy took over himself by about 1885, and ran it successfully through about 1892. About that time, Carpy and other retailers and wholesalers banded together to form the California Wine Association, and the Carpy business became part of the new venture. By 1898, the California Wine Association boasted some of the biggest names in wine distribution business: Lachman, Carpy, Van Bergen, Kohler, and others.
Paul O. Burns Wine Co., San Jose (c1888-1892). This company had an office in San Francisco in 1890, run by Sam Brownstone at 120-122 Front Street. The company may have joined one of the collective organizations in the early 1890’s. Burns was well known because he was the proprietor of the Yerba Buena Vineyard. Rare, as are the others.
Kohler & Van Bergen (c1885-1892). Henry Kohler and Nicholas Van Bergen began this as separate from an old family liquor business of both the Kohler and the Van Bergen families in San Francisco. Henry had been a partner with Kohler & Frohling, and took off with Van Bergen in 1885. They produced California wine and brandy. They sold at several locations in San Francisco, while their winery and distillery was in Sacramento in 1890. They also maintained a New York Office. In 1892, the group joined forces with the California Wine Association and former competitors such as Carpy.



For more information on this period of Napa wine production, please see The California Wine Industry 1830-1895 by Vincent Carosso, 1951. -60233