Wine in the Wild
Merlin - "The Moment of Truth"
Episode #110 - Aired 16 Aug 2009
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As Gaius hands his apprentice, Merlin, a bottle for the road, he gives this backhanded advice: "Careful with the wine. You know what you're like - one whiff of a barmaid's apron and you're singing like a sailor."
NBC states that "Merlin" takes place "in a time before history began." Arthurian scholars place this a bit more precisely in and around the 6th century AD. Keeping those details in mind, NBC clearly did some homework (or got lucky) with the wine in this scene. Rather than using a glass bottle (which did not really become standard until the 17th century) the wine is sealed in a clay jar - probably fairly accurate for the time, at least among the wealthy and fortunate (like the king's servants). The second key item to note is that the bottle is closed with a cork. The Greeks used corks as early as the 2nd century BC. This practiced continued in Europe until around the 8th century, when most of the cork supply (in what is Portugal today) was closed off from the rest of Europe by the conquering Moors. Cork slowly came back in to use starting in around the 17th century. Assuming that Merlin does take place around the 6th century, NBC got this right. It's also worth noting that the cork isn't shoved the whole way down into the bottle, but instead sticks out making it easy to grab and remove. This was crucial for drinking the wine back then, since the corkscrew didn't come into use until the end of the 17th century.
