It was created around 588 AD, and only came under Venetian rule in 1409: it is located in Laconia, an area that the Venetians called Morea because it resembled a mulberry leaf, which in their dialect is called morer. If we return to the etymological meaning of the word Moni Emvasis, it means a landing with one entrance: moni (only, one) and emvasis (entrance, passage), which was then distorted to the Venetian Malfasia, Malvagia and then Malvasia. Sweet wine called Malvasia was first mentioned by Nicola Mesarite, the metropolitan of Ephesus in 1214. The very long and magnificent history of Malvasia, as well as the distribution and success of this variety, was actually written by the Republic of Venice, also known as La Serenissima, starting, therefore, with Monemvasia.

When they supported Guglielmo de Villehardouin to temporarily occupy the site in 1248, the Venetians certainly came into contact with this wine “so sweet, delicious, a real nectar, the kind that everyone would want to take home.” This is how the ingenious Venetian merchants imagined it. But also, because it was “robust and suitable for traveling by land and sea”. They immediately tried to popularise their production on the island of Candia (Crete), which had been under their rule since 1204. To such an extent that in Venice in 1278 a quote appears referring to the importation of vinum de Malvasias.

Thus, that anonymous wine from Monemvasia became the “wine” of Venetians, a brand then known throughout the world that revolved around the Mediterranean and which became a source of colossal business for the budget of the Serenissima.

Pierre Galet devotes a long chapter to Malvasias in his Dictionnaire encyclopedique des cepagés et leurs synonymes (2018), reviewing about a hundred of them and citing an important study by Professor Logothetis (1965) who wrote: “Monemvasia, on the east coast of the Peloponnese, first became Malfasia , and then, after the Italianisation of the Venetians, Malvasia. Then Malvasijie in Croatian and Malvelzevec in Slovenian, Malvagia in Spanish, Malvasia in Portuguese, Malvoisie in French, Malvesie or Malmsey in English.”

“During the Crusades”, writes Logotheis, “Guillaume (Guglielmo) de Villehardhouin (son of Goffroi de Villehardhouin) took possession of Monemvasia in 1245 and then handed it over to Michel Pelaogue in 1263.” It is worth remembering (as reveals Michela Dal Borgo, curator of the State archive in Venice) the importance that the Serenissima gave to work related to wine. In fact, “as early as May 1268, Venice created a special magistracy, the Ufficiali al dazio del Vin (wine customs officials), to administer the tax and customs systems and to control the retail sale of wine in various shops.”

Vido Vivoda (Malvasia istriana, 2003) claims that “Istrian Malvasia has nothing to do with Venetian one because it is not possible to connect them because, it literally says, “various historical Venetian sources speak of the use of wine called Malvagia (imported from Greece) in church ceremonies and therefore, it is logical to assume that the wine had to be absolutely red, since at that time white wine was not allowed in religious ceremonies at all”. Except that, as Attilio Scienza points out with regard to the use of wine during Mass, “white wine was used in the Byzantine rites of the time, and even now in the Orthodox church, white wine is used, especially wine from Santorini, because it is not acidified.” Furthermore, in Article 3 of the canonical law, the colour of the Mass wine is not specified.

White wine was only introduced into the Roman ritual later, dating back to the Council of Trent (which was held from 1545 to 1563), in order to avoid the repetition of miracles like the one from Bolsena.

— Venice was the New York of that era where all trends were born thanks to trade, its laws, art, music, publishing.

White wine is used in the Orthodox Church, especially that from Santorini as wrtitten by Aldo Manuzio in his 1501 book which we still understand today. Furthermore, the only existing copy of the second book in Glagolictic script (the old Croatian alphabet) is a breviary from 1491 which is believed to be been printed in Venice and now kept in the Marciana Library there. And then the fabrics, glass, lifestyle and the cult of beauty were a source of continuous imitation. As well as coffee, and the Venetians were the first importers and suppliers of this green gold in Europe back in 1683. Being in that market meant being, in a cultural sense, part of the capital of the world at that time. They were also advanced when it came to secret services, thanks to an invention that can now be compared to cyber espionage. Although it only possessed some regions in the interior of north-eastern Italy and small coastal areas in some parts of the Mediterranean, Venice actually opposed kingdoms and empires that were much more powerful from a military-geographical and economic point of view successfully. It turned its ambassadors and consuls, a number of trade representatives and traders into highly informed agents, placed on a geographical and economic chessboard through a network of complex relationships. All these people were able to very quickly inform the top managers of the Serenissima and enable them to act and react quickly to events, announcements, rumours and commercial flows. For a long time, the people of Venetian espionage were among the most sophisticated in terms of information management, with the most effective ink produced by the Serenissima using a variety of plant and mineral raw materials and even urine. Information travels as it is written between the lines, and even today the expression “read between the lines” is used to denote careful reading that interprets the (true) reality of facts.

Malvazija is also the first example of the commercial interpretation of wine as a commodity, which was made possible by the great experience and naval power of the Venetian Republic.

Attilio Scienza observed what was implemented by the Serenissima with Malvasia in detail, “it was an ante litteram example of the globalisation of the sweet wine market, where the name of the place of production becomes a generic term denoting a wine with certain organoleptic properties, but without reference to the place of origin (and vine – author’s note).

The economic importance of this wine (which in England was exchanged in such a way that one barrel was exchanged for a bale of wool) led the Republic of Venice to build a special port, which is still called Fondaco della Malvasia.

It goes without saying that the increase in demand involved the search for new sources of production, with the choice of grape variety being free. Hence the confusion about Malvasia. “In order to fully understand the significance this wine had in European oenological history,” notes Attilio Scienza, “it is also necessary to understand the climatic, economic and social events of the 14th and 15th centuries on the old continent.

The cold wave, known as the “Little Ice Age”, decimated Europe’s population with famine and plague. Due to the climatic conditions, many wine-growing areas were abandoned, and the quality of the wine deteriorated significantly. Due to frequent visits to eastern churches, nobles and high clergy knew the wines of the eastern Mediterranean and their quality well and therefore became a privileged market not only for the Venetian navy that offered Malvasia and Vinsanti, but also for Genoese wine, which turned Vernaccia, produced on the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, into a symbol of its trade.

The Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean took away the island of Crete (Candia) from the Venetians in 1669, and with it a large part of the Malvasia production. This is the key event after which many Mediterranean Malvasias were created: on the one hand, because Venice did not give up its rich market, and on the other, because the famous wine encouraged the production, albeit from different grape varieties, of similar wines by imitating its organoleptic properties in many Italian, French , Spanish and even Portuguese regions. Namely, in a certain sense, Venice ordered the production of sweet, aromatic and alcoholic wines similar to Malvasia from many producers, especially from areas over which it had political supremacy such as Istria, Dalmatia, the Adriatic coast and the interior of the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia-Giulia regions. The oldest written evidence of the cultivation of Malvasia, including in Italy, dates back to between 1500 and 1600 (as we saw in Istria, from a quote by the Bishop of Novigrad, Tommasini), and apart from being proof that Venice had already created the network of subcontractors of Malvasia in its vicinity in order to make this wine more available to it before the loss of Candia (Crete), also represents an attempt to threaten the Venetian hegemony in some local markets of this wine. Its commercial success, however, disappeared soon after, partly due to the decline of the economic power of Venice, which no longer controlled the wine trade in the Mediterranean in relation to English competition, and partly due to the “drink revolution”, which affected the countries of northern Europe between 1600 and 1700 when consumer interest was directed towards the wines of Sauternes, Porto, Andalusia and Vermouth.”

At the instigation of the market managed by the Venetians, many varieties changed their name to Malvasia, with the addition of an adjective indicating their origin (from Candia, from Lecce, from Casorzo, etc.), qualitative characteristics (aromatic, white, pink, black, etc.), and the usual production technique was applied, such as drying on the vine or on racks depending on the climatic conditions. Scientists have tried to divide them into four groups based on their geographical origin or place of cultivation: Malvasia of the Western Mediterranean, Malvasia of Catalonia, Malvasia of the Adriatic, Malvasia of the Atlantic.