I visited Tryon Palace in New Bern, North Carolina for the first time in January 2016. I did not have much time and pretty much did the fast walk thru the whole place. The palace and several surrounding building are filled with vintage furniture, well worth visiting if you get the chance. In the kitchen building on the second floor was a version of a tilt table that had a cool swing arm mechanism that supported the top. This style of tilt table was unknown to me at the time but I decided then this was something I wanted to build.
Later, after some digging online, I found that these are called wine tasting tables. They are not a rare thing, found lots of photos of this same basic design with the swing arm top support. Some with round, oval, square and rectangular tops. Different sizes too, from side tables, to quite large dining tables.
I wrote an article on building a table based on the one at Tryon that is featured in the latest issue of Fine Woodworking Magazine (issue#273). The article and a free plan of the table are available here FWW Tilt Table.
-Will Myers
Eclectic Mechanicals 