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Many Big Bads, being more high-class than most heroes, like to sip some wine, usually red, while lounging on their throne. This makes them seem refined and worldly, even when relaxing. Heroes and more petty villains go for the more boorish beer, usually because they either can't afford wine or they have no taste for the stuff.
Note that red is seen as a lot more sinister than white wine, due to its Color Coding and general connotations with blood. When a vampire (usually richer and more refined, not one of the biker vamps) drinks red blood from a wine-glass, it invokes much the same imagery, and one can argue that villains drink red wine specifically to invoke the vampiric example.
Villainesses and neutral Femmes Fatales also have the option of sipping white wine and champagne ("girly" wines), and seductively drinking from a tall flute glass and peering through the bubbles at the hero.
Another common variant is the Snifter of Brandy, preferably poured from a snazzy, cut-glass decanter.
If these type of villains suffer a Villainous Breakdown, it's likely that there will be a Dramatic Shattering of that glass of wine as a metaphor for the breakdown.
Subtrope of Wine Is Classy. Wine, especially rare and expensive wine (and the ability to identify vintages of it by sight, smell, and taste), has become a cliche commonly associated with the Grey Poupon set. This can be used to indicate someone is a snob, or simply as a part of the background culture of the story. Further, red wine is more often an acquired taste, possibly hinting that one had the funds to develop it.
It should also be noted that, in certain parts of the world (Australia say, or rural France or Italy), wine is cheap and has no class connotations.
It might be worthy of note that Chianti is not actually a high class wine, and Fava beans aren't gourmet food, either. However, both are very rich in iron, as is the liver - and blood. Also, iron interacts with certain types of psychiatric medication, implying that Lecter was off his meds. The hint is rarely ever taken, though.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
Comic Books
Film
- In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter famously announces, "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti," before making a hideous slurping sound.
- In The Matrix Reloaded, the Merovingian sips wine while holding court in the restaurant.
- In Modesty Blaise The Movie, Gabriel (played by Dirk Bogarde) lounges with a glass of blue wine while dispensing his evil orders.
- In The Island, Corrupt Corporate Executive Dr. Merrick is seen watching the Lottery in his private abode, drinking from a wine glass.
- James Bond does this a number of instances.
- In From Russia With Love, he senses something isn't quite right with Red Grant when he orders red wine, specifically A Glass of Chianti... with fish.
- At the end of Diamonds Are Forever, 007 defeats the bad guys using his knowledge of fine wines. Earlier in the same film, he identifies the vintage of a sherry by taste. When sarcastically told sherry doesn't have vintages, he states that he meant the wine the sherry was made from. Possibly setting up Bond's superior knowledge of wine for later.
- The Big Bad in Race for the Yankee Zephyr spends half the time with a martini glass in his hand, whether traveling downstream in a rubber dinghy or watching his mooks beat up one of the protagonists.
- In Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Dracula says, "I never drink...wine. Ah, what the hell. <sip> It's good!"
- In Inglourious Basterds, Landa pours himself a glass of chianti from a fiasco while questioning Aldo. It's somewhat ironic that he's drinking Italian wine while interrogating a fake Italian.
- In Aladdin there's a wineglass in the vicinity of Jafar, but before he can drink it Jasmine throws it in his face.
- In Daybreakers, this is done with actual blood by the high-level vampire Bromley by draining a human victim's blood into a wine glass.
- Lestat pours rat blood in a wine glass in Interview with the Vampire, but it's disgusting to vampires.
Literature
- In the original novel of The Silence of the Lambs it was a "big Amarone" and not "a nice Chianti". Still a red wine from Italy, though. The change in the film was probably a case of Small Reference Pools.
- The titular Count in Dracula, does not eat or drink. He does however know enough about fine wines to provide Johnathan Harker with "a bottle of excellent Old Tokay" to have with supper.
- Double Subverted in Carpe Jugulum, where the human subculture of vampires are considered freaks because they file down their teeth, wear bright colors, stay up past noon, and drink... ''wine''.
Live Action TV
Music
- Stephen Lynch's "Beelz
 ."
My real name is Beelzebub, but you can call me Beelz
I love to watch Fox News and then go club some baby seals
Then I'll take a bubble bath and drink a Zinfandel
Try to wash off that baby seal smell
And then I'll make a toast to me—hey, here's to my hell...th!
Video Games
- A character from Ace Attorney materialized a brandy balloon from Hammer Space for the sole purpose of swirling it evilly in front of Phoenix.
- If you steal from Dracula in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, you will find that he drinks tomato juice. Now that's blackmail material.
- In the final boss battle in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow's Julius Mode, Soma Cruz lounges on Dracula's throne while sipping a glass of wine as you enter. He dramatically tosses it to the ground before rising to fight you.
- Soma is seen in a similar position in his bad ending of Aria of Sorrow.
- This is a shout-out to a similar scene in Symphony of the Night where Dracula dramatically tosses aside a wine glass while expressing his distaste for humanity before Throwing Down the Gauntlet and fighting Richter.
- The scene is also borrowed for a boss fight in I Wanna Be The Guy. The wine glass will hit the hero and kill them if they don't dodge— but what doesn't in this game?
- And again in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. Dracula really likes doing this.
- Dracula must have picked up the habit during Symphony of the Night, because he does it again in Order of Ecclesia.
- And the first game where Dracula does it is Castlevania X68000, later ported to PlayStation as Castlevania Chronicles.
- Magicka has yet another shout out to this (among its 9001 shout outs) when Vlad tosses a glass of wine away just before the boss fight starts.
- Fatman, the bizarrely hedonistic mad bomber boss in Metal Gear Solid 2, carries around a glass of red wine and drinks it as you fight him. Needless to say, it makes a mess of his blast suit in the end.
- This◊ Yoshitaka Amano concept art for Final Fantasy V depicts the main villain, Exdeath, lounging with a goblet of... something. He's probably only doing it for looks since for one thing, he still has his helmet on, and for another he's an evil tree, so the concept of drinking fruit juice, fermented or no, is probably kinda creepy and/or skeevy to him..
- Jonathan Jones and Valentina from Super Mario RPG are both seen holding wine glasses with red liquid in them. Johnny will comment on his drink if you inspect it after the boss fight. It's apparently 100% currant juice. Really.
- Mr X does this in the bad ending of Streets of Rage 3.
Web Comics
Web Original
- The Nostalgia Chick had a glass of dark-looking eggnog held in her hand during her second part of "Dreamworks Vs. Disney". While she's not technically a villain, but she kicked Nella rather badly during that episode.
Western Animation
- Megatron of Transformers Animated once convinced the Constructicons to switch sides by sharing some of his private blend of oil, and was of course holding a goblet full of it in the standard fashion. The 'goblet' was a barrel twisted into the shape of fine glassware. Classy!
- Beast Wars Rampage said the second half of the page quote verbatim in the original script for his first appearance, substituting "spark" for "liver".
- Ratigan from Disney's The Great Mouse Detective drinks a glass of champagne while, indeed, lounging on his throne.
- An episode of South Park parodies this. Cartman fakes having Tourette's, and is going to be on TV, and plans to say things on live television, and get away with it. When explaining this to Kyle, Cartman is sipping what appears to be wine, Kyle takes a sip from a glass and claims "This is apple juice!"
- In The Black Cauldron, Horned King broke his glass just like in Saint Seiya.
- Discord from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic does this with a glass of chocolate milk while sitting on his throne as the Evil Overlord of Equestria. While not wine, his mannerisms give it the same effect. Strangely, he drinks the glass instead of the milk, however—then again, what fun is there in making sense?
- In The Simpsons episode Monty Can't Buy Me Love , Kent Brockman reads: "This new breed of fun-loving billionaire is a welcome change from the classic joyless miser, brooding in his cavernous mansion, grasping a glass of brandy with his thin, clawlike fingers and a superior smirk on his greedy, soulless face" . Cut to Montgomery Burns sitting in his mansion, in that exact pose, glass in hand and uttering a reverbering "bah"
- The first time we see Black Manta unmasked in Young Justice, he's eating a fine meal and sipping wine in his lavishly decorated private quarters.
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