From a 17th century wine cellar. The wine sold here would have been imported from continental Europe, probably from the Mediterranean, and landed at the quay where High Street is today. Slave-produced rum and sugar were imported from the Caribbean by Valentine Jones, a merchant who had his store here. He had established a thriving agency in Barbados buying and selling to the planters.
The name is first recorded in 1756 but the street existed earlier and was called Bigarts Ally on Maclanachan's map of 1715.
White’s Tavern is in Winecellar Entry and it is on the basis of this cellar, first recorded in 1630 (just 17 years after Belfast was recognised as a town with a royal charter by James I), that it claims to be Belfast’s oldest public house.