Vines

Plants that grow in long trailing runners and tendrils, especially those kinds domesticated for the growing of grapes and the making of wine. Though doubtless vines were cultivated in many of the warmer parts of Middle-earth, we know of two places that were particularly associated with wine-making, and thus the growing of vines.

One of these places was the Southfarthing of the Shire, where the Shire-hobbits produced their wine. One kind of these wine grapes is recorded, a grape that produced a strong red wine known as Old Winyards, though doubtless the Hobbits produced other wines as well.

Far to the east and south of the Shire, down the Running River in Rhovanion, lay another land famous for its wines. This was Dorwinion (indeed one possible interpretation of its name is 'land of vines') which supplied the wines drunk by the Elvenking of distant Mirkwood, and doubtless trafficked far afield elsewhere in Middle-earth.