{"product_id":"2-antique-french-patriotic-wine-barrel-label-1920s-treasures","title":"Antique French Wine Barrel Labels 🍷 D.M. Tricolor Flag \u0026 Barrel Design 1920s Charm","description":"\u003ch2\u003eD. M. Tricolor Wine Labels 🍷 French Flag \u0026amp; Wine Cask, Sold as a Pair\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pvxPz2cXwq8\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eTwo little gold discs, an inch and a half across. A French tricolor snaps on a slim pole with the initials D. M. across the white, and a hooped wine cask lies underneath, all on a glittery gold sunburst ground. Never used, plain cream backs. I have a stack of these, so the pair you get will look just like the pair shown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🇫🇷 The Flag, Drawn the Right Way Round\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhoever drew it knew the flag: blue at the pole, white in the middle, red on the fly. That order goes back to the Revolution. The blue and red were the colors of Paris, the white was the old royal color set between them, and the Convention fixed the tricolor as France's flag in that order in 1794. The restored kings brought back the white flag after Napoleon fell, and the tricolor came home for good in 1830. So a wine merchant who put the tricolor on his label was saying, as loudly as a disc this size can, \"this is French.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🛢️ Why a Barrel\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor most of history, French wine traveled by the cask. Growers sold it young in barrel, and the merchants aged it, bottled it and sold it under their own names. Even the great Bordeaux chateaux worked that way until Baron Philippe de Rothschild bottled the entire 1924 harvest at Mouton himself, and the other first growths soon followed. A barrel under the flag was the plainest sign there was for a wine house - and on this little disc it is one house's own badge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 So Who Was D. M.?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDesmet-Maertens. This exact flag-over-a-barrel on a gold sunburst is the emblem of Aux Fûts de France - \"from the casks of France\" - the house name of J. Desmet-Maertens, a liqueur and spirits maker at 84 Chaussée de Menin in Rumbeke, Belgium. The house's spirits labels carry the same flag and cask in the same gold roundel beside a DM monogram and \"Fabriqué en Belgique,\" and its cardboard bottle toppers read AUX FUTS DE FRANCE \/ RUMBEKE \/ Belgisch Produkt. So the French flag here is a Flemish house's promise: our wine comes from the casks of France. Rumbeke, just outside Roeselare in West Flanders, has a castle built between 1520 and 1535 and gave Belgium its first Tour de France winner, Odile Defraye, in 1912.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese were made by the hundred. A lot of a hundred of these same D. M. discs has turned up still rolled in its original paper wrappers, the way they came from the printer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🖨️ Where the Fancy Wine Label Came From\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo printer signed this little disc, but the decorative wine label has a famous family tree in Bordeaux. Cyprien Gaulon, born in 1777, set up as a lithographer there in 1818 and worked until 1858, and his printing house grew into Wetterwald, whose sample books of model wine labels let a merchant choose a design right off the page - their 1931 book held fifty-two of them. Gaulon also printed for Francisco Goya. In November and December of 1825 the old painter, living in exile in Bordeaux, worked with him on four great bullfight lithographs, the Bulls of Bordeaux, in an edition of a hundred. The story goes that Goya was short of money and paid his printer with a portrait instead, and Goya's lithograph portrait of Gaulon, drawn in 1825 or 1826, does survive, with early impressions at the Bibliotheque nationale in Paris and at Wesleyan University's Davison Art Center in Connecticut. Whether it settled a bill is the part that stays a story, and it's too good a story to lose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLovely floated in a small round mat by a wine rack or on a bar cart - the gold really catches the light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-qualite-superieure-french-wine-label-1920s-treasures\"\u003eAntique 1920s French Wine Label 🍷 Qualité Supérieure Gold \u0026amp; Orange 3-Star Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/two-antique-1920s-uitgelezen-druivenwyn-aux-futs-de-france-french-wine\"\u003eAntique French Wine Bottle Neck Labels 🍷 Uitgelezen Druivenwyn Aux Fûts de France Dutch Market 1920s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1920s-1930s-cuvee-speciale-french-wine-label-unique-design\"\u003eAntique 1920s-1930s French Wine Collarette Label 🍷 Cuvée Spéciale Crowned Heraldic Crest Lithograph NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40904989212837,"sku":"VAG-7072573391013","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3362866594_4rv3.jpg?v=1785355288","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/2-antique-french-patriotic-wine-barrel-label-1920s-treasures","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}