The word Amphora
describes the ancient Greek or Roman two handle, narrow neck ceramic jar used
for storing wine or oil etc.
The commission required
that we make four large Amphorae, or Wine Jars for Ashbourne,
also owned by the Hamilton Russell's, so that they could
try experimenting with maturing wine in clay pots, as might have been done in
ancient times.
The process began with a
great deal of discussion which led to various clay and firing tests to determine
a suitable clay to use, then to the sample pots before beginning work on
the actual making of the large pots.
These large jars are hand-made
and David threw them on the potter's wheel in stages using a gas blowtorch to
stiffen the stages as he went, taking up to two days on the wheel to complete
each jar.
The drying process on
work of this size is critical and needed to be carried out very slowly and
evenly to prevent cracking and warping or distorting. Once the jars were off the
wheel and loaded onto a trolley, they were covered with large plastic bags for 3
to 4 weeks in order to control the speed of dying. After a month inside
the studio the jars were wheeled out on their trolleys under the lean-to
behind the studio, the bags were removed and the jars were allowed to dry
naturally under cover and in the shade for another 4 weeks before loading the
kiln for the first firing.
Two of the four wine
jars were coated with a slip made of clay dug on the farm where the grapes for
the wine were grown.
For the first firing,
called the bisque firing, the pots were fired to 1 000°C over a period of about
10 hours in a more or less neutral atmosphere, with a very, very slow preheat
period before the firing of at least 4 days.
The jars were spayed
with a light coating of a khaki green glaze on the outside from the shoulder to
the top including the handles. The body of the jars and the insides were left
unglazed in order to encourage interaction between the fired clay and the wine
as it matures in the jars.
The glaze firing in our
oil-fired (paraffin) kiln reached a top temperature 1 320°, Orton Cone 12,
in about 10 hours with reduction taking place for about 31/2 hours.
The pots weighed about
80kg when wet and hold an average of 150 litres of wine each. In their unfired
state they stood about 1 200mm tall and because of their size and weight, David
could not possibly move them on his own and we are most grateful our friend
Myburgh de Wet who attends David's Wednesday evening pottery class who is always
willing to lend a hand when needed.
An extraordinary amount
of work!
The wine matured in
these
Amphorae has been bottled as 'Ashbourne Sandstone 2009' by
Hamilton Russell Vineyards
