HistoricalNews Cuttings
At Berry Bros. & Rudd, history is always close at hand. One recent discovery illuminates even more about the 300-year-old business. Found in a dusty ‘lodge’ above the shop in Basingstoke; an ancient, leather-bound volume has ‘News Cuttings’ written in gold letters on the front cover. Inside are informative, funny and often personal mementos of the firm’s history spanning over 100 years.
Vogue, October 1937: "Wine, Women and Sense" by Barry Neame
Barry Neame was the author of "To Introduce the Cellar" published 1936 for The Hind's Head Hotel, Bray-on-Thames.
Berry Bros. & Rudd was mentioned in a 1930s explanation of the wine world for a new audience: women. ‘women are beginning to gatecrash the wine cellar … indeed no woman with any pretentions to elegance can afford to be altogether a wine philistine’ says the article, written in the 1937 October Vogue.
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Daily Express 22 October 1938: "Cellar Leavings"
An account of auction of Queen Victoria of Portugal’s husband’s wines. The Daily Express witnessed one of Berry Bros. & Rudd most stalwart partners in his bid to secure rare wines being sold by Queen Victoria of Portugal in 1938. The paper recorded that "Berry" was bidding on many wines that had originally been from “Berry Bros.”, and were sheltered from the Germans in Liège from 1914-1918.
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The Evening Standard -December 16, 1926: "A Glass of Wine With You"
This 1926 story about 'Mr. Berry, the famous wine merchant' records his struggle to obtain Tokay for an ailing King Edward some years before.
The story is made even more interesting by the red annotation in Berry Bros. & Rudd's News Cuttings book next to it: 'Untrue! The bottle was returned unopened'.
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Reprinted from the November, 1935 American Bar Association Journal: "The Titchborne Case – A Further Anecdote" by Richard A. Hale
This anecdote about a famous 1870s law case was written in the American Bar Association Journal. It tells the story of how the judge solved the mystery of a peer’s missing son with the help of Mr. Henry Berry, the firm’s senior partner, and the famous weighing books of No. 3…
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The New London Magazine January 1931: '£25 will give you a Wine Cellar to be proud of'
In a classic snapshot of a sadly bygone age, Berry Bros. & Rudd expert H. Warner Allen wrote about how to establish a cellar for only £25.
A case of Chablis could cost you £3, while 3 dozen bottles of good ordinary Claret would cost just under £6. Included is a picture of a 'cellarette' – a practical solution for those living in a flat or smaller house.
Read ArticleWashington newspaper: "Record Breaking Liquor Cargo Coming to District Wholesale"
An article in a Washington D.C. newspaper commemorates the place of "Berry Bros." stock in a record- breaking liquor cargo just after Prohibition. Berry Bros. & Rudd was famous all over the world by the 1930s, and are described here as 'the last word and the "Tiffany" of the entire liquor industry of the old country'.
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