Wine
Wine in Westeros is comparable to wine in the real world. It is an alcoholic beverage made with fermented fruit juice, usually grapes. Wine is a very popular beverage. There are many different and unique vintages of wine in Westeros and beyond. Some vintages are vastly superior to others.
Contents
Vintages of wine
Westeros:
- Arbor gold[1]
- Dornish sour reds
- Strongwine from Dorne - as dark as blood and as sweet as vengeance
- Sweet plum wine [2]
- Sweet reds from The Reach
Essos and beyond:
- Andalish sours [3]
- Apricot wine from Meereen [4]
- Blackberry wine
- Dreamwine flavored with strange spices: from Qarth
- Ghiscari wine made with small yellow grapes, an inferior vintage that leaves a metallic aftertaste[5].
- Golden vintage from the Jade Sea [6]
- Green nectar of Myr
- Honeyed wine
- Hot mulled wine spiced with cloves and nutmeg
- Myrish firewine
- Pentoshi pale ambers
- Persimmon wine from Slaver's Bay[7]
- Pomegranate wine
- Red wine from Lys
- Selhorys pale green wine
- Smokeberry browns
- Spice wine
- Sweet Volantene wine
- White wine from Lys
- Wine of Courage - drunk exclusively by Unsullied
- Shade of the evening, peculiar to the warlocks of Qarth[8]
- Unknown vintages from Yi Ti and Asshai[9]
References in the books
A Song of Ice and Fire
- Wine is often stored in skins and casks.
- Wine is sometimes watered down for children or at certain times of day.
- Boiling wine is sometimes poured into wounds to disinfect them.
- Seamen are the worst gossips in the world when the wine is flowing.
- The Lazy Eel is a winesink in White Harbor renowned for offering the vilest wine in the city.
- Ulf the White and Ser Hobert Hightower die from poisoned Arbor gold provided by Hobert.
- Claw Isle's castle is reputedly stocked with more wines that a man could drink in a 100 years[10].
- When Kevan Lannister tells Cersei Lannister that she is as unfit a mother as she is as a ruler she throws a cup of red wine in his face.
- As they are breaking their fast in the Queen's Ballroom the morning of King Joffrey Baratheon's wedding, Sansa notices that Tyrion scarcely touches his food though he drinks several cups of wine.
- During a finger dance with Qarl the Maid one of Eldred Codd's fingers lands in Ralf the Limper's wine cup. [11]
- During Victarion Greyjoy’s feast Asha Greyjoy helps herself unasked to Nute the Barber’s wine. Nute raises no objection; he had passed out drunk some time ago. [11]
- Sandor Clegane tells Sansa Stark that all a man needs is a flagon of sour red, dark as blood. Or a woman.
- Elder Brother tells Brienne that his life was writ in red, in blood and wine – until he died in the Battle of the Trident.
- Elder Brother told Brienne that the Hound drank to drown his pain in a sea of wine. [12]
- Small, tart grapes grow in the summer arbor on the Quiet Isle, from which the Brothers make a drinkable wine[12].
- At the Wall the black brothers drink hot mulled wine, spiced with cloves and nutmeg.
- Lord Torghen Flint journeys to the Wall to attend the wedding of Alys Karstark and Sigorn the Magnar of Thenn and enjoys the southern wine at the feast.
- Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun takes a gigantic liking to wine after first tasting it at Castle Black.
- Lady Nymeria Sand's lips are wine-red.
- It is said that across the Jade Sea they make a golden vintage so fine that one sip makes all other wines taste like vinegar. [6]
- During his brief stay at Illyrio Mopatis’s manse in Pentos, Tyrion notes that there is enough wine in the manse's cellar to keep him drunk for a hundred years. The cellar includes a cask of strongwine marked as the private stock of Lord Runceford Redwyne, the grandfather of the present Lord of the Arbor - the taste of it is languorous and heady on the tongue, the color purple so dark it looks almost black in the dim-lit cellar.
- Illyrio tells Tyrion that when he and Varys were young men in Pentos, the older thieves were fools who thought no further than turning a night’s plunder into wine. [13]
- While journeying in Illyrio’s litter Tyrion drinks blackberry wine so sweet that it draws more flies then honey does.
- Prince Aegon Targaryen tells Tyrion that as a child he was swapped with was some tanner's son sold to Lord Varys for a jug of Arbor gold. The babe’s father had other sons but had never tasted Arbor gold.[1]
- In the brothel in Selhorys Tyrion opts for the slave-whore with tight red curls upon her head. He says to the proprietor “I’ll have a flagon too. Red wine with red flesh.” [1]
- Penny throws a cup of gold wine Tyrion’s face aboard the Selaesori Qhoran when she is still blames him for the death of her brother Oppo.
- During her wedding ceremony to Khal Drogo, Daenerys Targaryen sits in her wedding silks with no one to talk to, nursing a cup of honeyed wine while talking silently to herself.
- Xaro Xhoan Daxos tries to entreat Daenerys to journey around Yi Ti to search for the dreaming city of poets, to sip the wine of wisdom from a dead man’s skull.
- After her visit to the Pureborn in the Hall of a Thousand Thrones, Daenerys and Xaro Xhoan Daxos drink ruby red-wine from matching goblets of jade and gold. The wine tastes of pomegranates and hot summer days.
- In Astapor, while attempting to buy Unsullied, Dany sits in her Qartheen gown sipping tart persimmon wine from a tall silver flute trying to keep her face blank and ignorant while the Good Masters confer amongst themselves in low voices. [7]
- Wine from Slaver's Bay is thin and pale.
- Daenerys nibbles on flatbread, olives, figs and cheese and sips from a cup of watered wine during her audience in the hall of the Great Pyramid. The wine leaves a tart metallic aftertaste in her mouth[5].
- Hizdahr zo Loraq develops a taste for Arbor gold and sweet reds.
- Bloodbeard has a prodigious appetite for wine.
Winesinks, Taverns, and Inns
Winesinks, taverns, and inns are all popular places to drink wine (and other alcoholic beverages) both in Westeros and across the Narrow Sea.
Westeros:
- Bawdy Badger in Tumbleton
- Bloody Caltrops in Tumbleton
- Broken Anvil in King's Landing
- Checkered Hazard in Oldtown
- Inn at the crossroads in Westeros
- Inn of the Kneeling Man in the Riverlands
- Lazy Eel in White Harbor
- Old inn on Eel Alley in King's Landing
- Old Stone Bridge in the Crownlands
- Peach in Stoney Sept
- Quill and Tankard in Oldtown
- Seven Swords in Duskendale
- Smoking Log in Winterfell
- Stinking Goose in Maidenpool
Essos and beyond:
- Black Bargeman in Braavos
- Foghouse in Braavos
- House of Seven Lamps in Braavos
- Inn of the Green Eel in Braavos
- Merchant's House in Volantis
- Purple Lotus in Meereen.
- Pynto's in Braavos
- Satin Palace in Braavos
Quotes
The world is full of wine.[9]
... there were always dangers when men were in their cups, and a king should never be unguarded...
You see the wonders than can be worked with lies and Arbor gold? [14]
- Lord Petyr Baelish, to Sansa Stark
"Japes are one way to keep the fear away. Wine's another."
External Links
References and Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 22, Tyrion VI.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 60, Sansa VI.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 54, Daenerys VI.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 23, Daenerys IV.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 2, Daenerys I.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 40, Daenerys III.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 27, Daenerys III.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 48, Daenerys IV.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 1, Tyrion I.
- ↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 36, Davos IV.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 18, The Iron Captain.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 31, Brienne VI.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 5, Tyrion II.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 10, Sansa I.