Tyrion building up a thirst.

A fun look at Wine in a Game of Thrones

George R.R. Martin’s  “A song of fire and Ice” or commonly known as the Game of Thrones (GOT) is based on a bunch of people who really like Wine and secondly playing at politics whilst jostling for the seat of power in Westeros.

Westeros is the fictional land that most of the action takes place. It is a harsh land of extremes and rich bloody history.

I am into the fourth book “A Feast for Crows” and like a large swarth of people around the world am enchanted by the HBO series called simply “Game of Thrones”.

Essentially wine plays a large part in setting the scenes in the book, it can be used as a relaxant, a drink before, during or after battle and also to warm someone up before some treacherous action is plotted on them which of course happens quite a bit.

Tyrion doing what he does best, scheme with wine in hand.

Like the real world wine is sourced from only certain areas and the best of the bunch goes to the Dornish. The Dornish people make all sorts of wine and in most cases it is the finest in the land. The wine from Dorne can be thick and sweet, just plain sweet or just plain big. Sounds a little like Australia!

The wine can be carried in bottles, carafes, barrels and of course my favourite method, the wineskin hanging off someone’s shoulder. The wineskin is commonly used in battle or when travelling the dangerous landscapes in Westoros.

Ser Dontos being force fed wine from a large barrel

Wine is also used to clean people’s wounds, they boil it up and pour it directly onto open wounds before it cools! Youch!!!!

It seems to do the job most times but I have also seen it fail a fair bit too. I think it would best be left for drinking.

A lot of the wine is not even consumed for taste, the northern part of Westeros is very very cold and the wine is used as a way to keep warm. The most popular wine used to keep warm is mulled wine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulled_wine

Mulled wine is wine that is boiled along with spices and other additives and then consumed hot. It is very popular in areas that are quite cold.

There is even a recipie for a (GOT) mulled wine at a site which is dedicated to the food and wine of Westeros.

You can find this site here, the wine it described is one used by the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch on the Wall at the most Northern point of Westeros.

One thing to note is that the Wall is a very very cold place so this mulled wine recipe would have been a favourite up there.

Just about every character drinks wine, Kings have had wine kill them such as Robert being gored by a pig whilst hunting, he had too many skins!

King Robert, with a horn full of wine.

The biggest wine drinker would be Tyrion who seems to have never tasted water. If you have not seen or read this stuff I really recommend that you do.

This works of George R. R. Martin is described as fantasy for those that do not like fantasy. I cannot speak highly enough of this masterpiece and I hope you liked my wine orientated piece on “Game of Thrones”.