But why buy a
dry wine only to put sugar in it afterwards?
This was done because there is a final step to making sherry. Brandy is added in order to increase the
alcohol content. It is the potency of
sack that Falstaff praises. In time,
sack drinkers learned that one could boil sugar into it and both increase the
alcohol content still further and get rid of the bitter taste of the
tannin. Thus “burnt sack”.
As
Hart makes clear, straining wine through a sack tends to reduce the
potency of a wine. This is just the
opposite of what Falstaff and his ilk sought.
No doubt there was plenty of straining out dregs in the wine industry. Perhaps the result was even called a “sacked
wine” in certain circles. But it is a
misapprehension to think that this gives the name to sack wines. In the same line, the entry in the Dictionnaire
de l’Academie stating that “sec” referred to wines without liquor added is
not to our point. Again, Falstaff wanted
potency and sherry is fortified with brandy thus supplying his want. But it is “sack” by virtue of the fact that
all of the sugar is fermented away (the traditional definition of a “dry” wine)
leaving the astringent (dry) taste of tannin.
This leaves us
with just one further question to answer.
Why were so many other wines than sherry called sack? The likely answers are: 1) there are other
dry wines than sherry; 2) other wines both wet and dry may have been fortified
with alcohol in order to better compete for customers and in this manner “sack”
began to be used for “fortified wine” in general parlance; 3) many other wines
were advertised as “sack” regardless that they had none of the qualities of
fortified dry wine because they could be more easily sold for more money until
customers realized that they lacked the expected potency.
Finally, Mr.
Hart’s conclusion that “sacked” or strained wines were the origin of the wine
“sack” cannot be absolutely dismissed.
It was, after all, 500 years ago.
Some people may have meant that when they said “sack” or have thought
that was what it meant when they spoke the word. There is no final arbiter to issue a decision. Like nearly all matters at the distance of
time, we can only show that one derivation is very substantially more likely
than another. That said, his footnote remains
a rich and finely detailed learning experience regardless that its conclusion
is wrong.
- How Edward de Vere Didn't Depart Italy (it turns out). July 19, 2017. "It seemed that Pasquale Spinola must have been mistaken or misled. There would not have been nearly enough time to visit Florence, Siena, Rome, Naples and Palermo and to return to Venice. Such a trip took considerable time in the 16th century."
- Edward de Vere's Memorial For His Son, Who Died at Birth May 1583. July 5, 2017. "The brief Viscount Bulbeck being the son of the renowned poet and playwright Edward de Vere, we might have hoped to have the text of the father’s own memorial poem. As far as traditional literary history is concerned, no such poem has yet been discovered."
- Shakespeare's Apricocks. February 21, 2017. "While he may never have been a gardener, he does seem more than superficially knowledgeable about the gardens of his day. One detail of such matters that he got wrong, however, is as much to the point as any."
- John Donne's"Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day". December 13, 2016. "Today, December 13, is Saint Lucy’s Day. In John Donne’s time, when the old calendar was still in use, it fell upon (and was, therefore, the feast of) the winter solstice."
- Enter John Lyly. October 18, 2016. "From time to time, Shakespeare Authorship aficionados query after the name “John Lyly”. This happens surprisingly little given the outsized role the place-seeker, novelist and playwright played in the lives of the playwright William Shakespeare and Edward de Vere."
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