The guests continue to sample the wines. Vevoda wipes their glasses dry after they taste the “Taranaki 1863.” In order to comfort himself about the sounds of birds, he vocalizes to his guests that the birds will never find their way out of here. A list of wines appears on the page:

“NOIR ODESSA 1871
NOIR DAHOMEY 1840
NOIR GALWAY 1831
NOIR BIJAPUR 1791
NOIR ADANA 1909
NOIR RIO NEGRO 1878
NOIR BARKOL 1756”

Straka explains, “All of these: times and places where great numbers of people have suffered, died, disappeared.” The effect of these tragedies is the loss of communities, traditions, myths and histories.

Upon searching each of these places and dates on the internet, real historical records appeared for each one. “ODESSSA 1871” refers to the progrom of 1871 in Odessa and the antisemitism that Greeks and Russians inflicted upon Jews during this year.

DAHOMEY 1840 refers to the kingdom, Dahomey, in Africa in 1840. During this year, a transition was made from selling slaves overseas to keeping them to work on palm oil plantations.

GALWAY 1831 refers to the appointment of the new Diocese of Galway, George Joseph Plunkett Browne, in 1831.

BIJAPUR 1791 is the widespread famine in 1791 across South Asian due to droughts, causing 11 million people to die from starvation and diseases brought about from the famine.

ADANA 1909 is the year of the Adana Massacre. Abdul-Hamid was appointed to rebuild the Turkish administration and and ordered Areminians to be killed in order to decrease their economic role in society. A total of 30,000 Armenians were murdered.

The most common internet result for RIO NEGRO 1878 was the medal for Rio Negro and Patagonia, 1878 which was rewarded to General Roca for campaign against Patagonian Indians in an effort to Christianize the Indians or kill them if they refused.

BARKOL 1756 refers to the mass murder of the men in Barkol. It was started by the overrule of Zunghar Khanate by the Qing dynasty. The dynasty ordered for the men in Barkol to be murdered.

Straka’s words, “To drink the black stuff is to drink what has been lost,” suddenly becomes clear. All of Vevoda’s wines represent a time in history in which many people suffered or were opressed or killed. Vevoda himself is one of the perpetrators of this cruelty against humanity.