Malvasia Malmsey was one of the three major wines exported from Greece in medieval times. (For other examples, see Rumney wine and Cretan wine). It is alleged that when Edward IV of England convicted his brother, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, of high treason, his private execution consisted of being "drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine," which is dramatized in Shakespeare's "Richard III". Both Monemvasia and Candia have lent their names to modern grape varieties. In Greece, there is a variety known as Monemvasia, evidently named after the port, though now grown primarily in the Cyclades. In western Europe,
English wine cask units denote its contents. The unit was also known as a "tertian" (from the Latin word for "third"). Of comparable size to the beer hogshead, the wine hogshead was equal to half a butt or a quarter of a tun. Closely related to the modern oil barrel, the tierce was half a puncheon, a third of a butt or a sixth of a tun. The wine barrel was half a wine hogshead or an eighth of a tun. The rundlet was a seventh of a butt or a fourteenth of a tun. Originally, the tun was defined as 256 wine gallons;