Hommel Champagne Jug LARGE 1890s to 1910s (very rare size)

This is a stoneware advertising jug , 11 Inches tall (see photo) excellent condition,  very rare in this HUGE size (see photos)

The company and the man behind it

Michael (Michel) Hommel was the "M." on your jug. He was born January 10, 1844, in Rippweiler, Luxembourg. At fourteen he went to Ay, in France's Champagne region, to work in a wine and champagne cellar. By eighteen he was champagne maker for one of the largest firms in France. Before settling in Sandusky, he worked for Longworth in Cincinnati and for Cook in St. Louis. Those were two of the most important names in early American winemaking.

In 1871 he moved to Sandusky and spent seven years working for W. H. Mills. In 1878 he struck out on his own. At first he made wine in a shed and stored it in cellars built under his house. The winery and residence were at the northeast corner of Clinton and Pearl Streets. The company specialized in naturally fermented champagnes made from Lake Erie Islands grapes. Its cellars were cut into limestone and stayed at about fifty degrees all year.

The company never moved from its original site, so the number itself probably changed when the city renumbered its streets. The then jug dates from before that renumbering, most likely the 1890s to 1910s.

It has a cream-white Bristol-type glaze, a black stamped mark, and a visible seam where the shoulder meets the body. That's typical of commercially made stoneware jugs from about 1890 to 1920. Also, "Champagnes" with the comma and the ornate serif lettering reads as turn-of-the-century advertising style.