The Punt and it’s history in glass, the BTL color Green and Dom did not invent Sparkling
While at the J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1687
The Punt and it’s history in glass and the color green.
I observed waldglas or forest glass [click]Click on me](Waldglas – Wikipedia)
it was a 5 ounce glass with a punt in it, the date of this glass was estimated at 1480-1520… I also came across a beaker with a punt 1400’s.
The world’s oldest bottle of wine was found near Spayer, Germany, inside Roman stone sarcophagus the bottle was from 325 AD and was found in 1867…no punt. While blowing glass the punting stick holds the glass and can easily produce a punt… the punt is said to add balance to the bottle, enable sediment to collect, help you hold the glass, pour and turn the bottle…
So I think that with sparkling wine came the need for the punt coupled with the English as England invented the stronger glass for sparkling wines way before Dom … so Forget Dom Pérignon Click on me
As early as 1630 a retired British Admiral, Sir Robert Mansell, while searching for a way to make coloured glass had invented a manufacturing process incorporating the use of iron and manganese which resulted in English glass bottles being much stronger than those being manufactured in France at that time.
What I found very interesting is that glass in the north Germany etc. was green
With the sand ferric oxides came into the mixture, which colors the glass green in quantities of less than 0.1 %.
Could this be the reason for our green glass today? It sounds plausible …
So with my observations at the museum I have concluded that the punt was a technology breakthrough in the glass world and this was due to the high pressure in the bottle of sparkling wine… the pressures I believe the pressure of a sparkling wine is up to 6 atmospheres ( one atmosphere is equal to 14.7 PSI) to the min of 2 atmospheres and this did cause glass without a punt to explode…
The punt would do the trick and as it was adopted as early as the 1400’s I would conclude that sparkling wine under glass was invented before this time…leading to the use of the punt. Thus the punt shows up in a glass that I saw from the 1480’s and from the beaker with a punt 1400’s. … only reason for this was due to the changing the way the glass was made in manufacturing due to the sparkling wine under glass problem…
Conclusion, I have dated the first use of the punt and sparkling wine was the catalyst… No one knows for sure, but this is my best attempt to date the punt and give reason for it as well as the color green being prominent in glass today. If anyone has other information I am all ears and love to learn.
last I found this Click on me
Shalom !!!
Salute !!!