In addition to those seven maps, the Jefferson component will also feature an arrangement showing what Jefferson’s table must have looked like, with flatware that Ballin says is exactly like a set Jefferson bought in France. “The dining aspects of drinking wine were so critical—the silver, the glasses,” says Ballin. “The glasses have very small bowls, and they’re all hand-blown. Very different from today’s.”
Ballin notes that back then, it was the men who bought silver, not women, because dining was so intertwined with politics—and perhaps more so for Jefferson than just about anyone else. According to the 2005 PBS documentary The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine, during Jefferson’s eight years as president, one-third of his $25,000 annual salary went to food and wine—we’re talking 10,000 bottles for who knows how many state and other dinners. “He saw wine as critical to the formation of this country,” says Ballin.
Apparently so! À votre santé.
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