Sparkling wine

The Slovak colloquial term for sparkling wine is “sekt”. It comes from the Latin “siccus” meaning dry. It developed through the Spanish “seco” and English “sack” into the German term “Seck” around 1640. In the beginning the terms “seck” and “sack” described still sweet Spanish wine, sherry. Only in 1825 the word “Sekt” became by coincidence a term to describe sparkling wine. After his show at the Berlin theatre the actor Ludwig Devrient wanted to refresh himself at the Lutter & Wegner wine shop and he called the waiter by quoting Shakespeare’s Henry IV: “Bring me Sekt, garcon!”. In reality the waiter was supposed to bring sherry, but since he was not listening carefully, he brought, as usual, champagne to Devrient. From that day on the term sekt found its new meaning first in the vocabulary of visitors of the Lutter & Wegner wine shop, and later of Berliners and Northern Germans and by 1860 this term had spread all over German speaking Europe.