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,
Rumney wine not a "fortified" wine in the modern sense, rather a "cooked" wine ("vin cuit") to which boiled-down must (grape syrup) was added. Rumney was exported from Methoni in the southern Peloponnese (one English source calls it "Rompney of Modonn") and perhaps also from Patras and other ports. Although modern methods are different, the Mavrodafni of Patras might be regarded as a modern equivalent of medieval Rumney wine. At the same period, Monemvasia, on the eastern coast of the Peloponnese, was the centre for the export of Malmsey wine; Cretan wine was the third of the medieval trio of Greek wines