Legend has it that in the 14th century AD in the town of Grasse, in the French Alps, Queen Joan I of Naples was seeking to hide from a storm, when she found refuge in the workshop of a master glassmaker.
The queen then became interested in the manufacture of bottles and tried to make her own. She blew with such strength that she managed to make a large bottle of ten liters capacity.
The master glassmaker suggested giving the name “Reine Jeanne” (Queen Jeanne) to that bottle. But the queen preferred to leave her condition aside and she named it “Damme Jeanne” (Lady Jeanne).
Since then, all bottles with similar formats began to be called Dame Jeanne, also known in English as demijohn - damajuana in Spanish.
In Argentina, damajuanas were marketed as wine containers by wineries until the 1980s, when they began to be replaced by the wine bottles we know today. But Argentine families still remember it as the symbol of a shared table.
