[WHITE a. 2 a. Cf. L. vinum album, F. vin blanc, G. weisswein.] Any light-colored transparent wine: a general designation for wines of various colors from pale yellow to amber, in contradistinction to red wine.
[a. 1300: see RED a. 16.]
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. Prol. 228. White wyn of Oseye and red wyn of Gascoigne.
c. 1430. Two Cookery-bks., 35. Draw vppe þorw a straynoure with a lytyl whyle Wyne & Sugre.
c. 1435. Torr. Portugale, 292. Sche byrlyd whyt wyne and Rede.
1528. Paynell, Salerne’s Regim., F iij. White wyne enflameth or heteth leest of all wynes.
1617. Moryson, Itin., III. 133. France … yeelds great plenty of red and white wines.
1749. R. James, Diss. Fevers (ed. 2), 31. She set forward for London, and upon the Road drank near a Bottle of White-Wine.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xlvi. Even white wine and claret were got for nothing, since the Duke’s … rights of admiralty gave him a title to all the wine in cask which is drifted ashore.
1857. Miller, Elem. Chem., Org. (1862), iii. § 1. 160. Red grapes may be made to yield a ‘white’ wine.
b. attrib., as white wine cask; white wine vinegar, vinegar made from white wine; white wine whey, a medicinal drink consisting of white wine and whey (cf. WHEY sb. 1 b).
1567–8. in Swayne, Churchw. Acc. Sarum (1896), 113. A *whyte wyne caske.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, vi. 97. *White wine Vinegar is generally to be preferred.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Engl. Housekpr. (1778), 27. Add to it a spoonful of white wine vinegar.
1749. Lady Luxborough, Lett. to Shenstone, 8 Sept. Since blankets and *white-wine-whey have not cured you.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. Old Bach. Andrews,… regular as ‘the chimes at midnight,’ prepared his white-wine whey.
1890. R. C. Lehmann, Harry Fludyer, 6. Blathers is … giving him some white wine whey cook has just sent up.
