Marsala wine Marsala wine Marsala is a wine, dry or sweet, produced in the region surrounding the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily. Marsala first received "Denominazione di Origine Controllata" (DOC) status in 1969. The DOC status is equivalent to PDO: most countries limit the use of the term "Marsala" to those wines that come from the Marsala area, to which the European Union grants Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status. While the city's natives sometimes drink "vintage" Marsala, the wine produced for export is universally fortified similar to Port, Madeira and Sherry. Originally, this addition of alcohol was to ensure that
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