Malmseys

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A rich, sweet, strongly fortified wine originally made from grapes grown in Madeira and the Mediterranean islands
2. Any of several heavy dessert wines of high alcohol content, traditionally produced on the Madeira islands
3. Sweet, dark, amber-coloured fortified wine that was once a popular drink in medieval and early modern Europe

Etymology: Malmsey is named after a place, and the place name itself is a little story. Monemvasia is a fortified rock city on the Peloponnese, and its Greek name comes from "mónos" ("only one") and "émbasis" ("entering into"), a reference to its single narrow causeway linking the rock to the mainland. From there the name passed into Italian and Old French, where the town's sweet wines were shipped out, and then into Middle Dutch as "malemeseye." The word reached English through Middle English "malmesye," and its meaning stayed tied to the wine itself rather than drifting into a general term for sweetness. The variant "malvoisie" is a doublet: the same Monemvasia origin, arriving in English by a different route, which is why two words for one sweet wine exist side by side. "Malmseys" is simply the plural of the noun, used when referring to several kinds or several bottles of the wine.