  Below the deconfinement phase transition large $N_c$ QCD is expected to be a
very viscous hadronic fluid because both the shear and bulk viscosity to
entropy density ratio, $\eta/s,\zeta/s \sim N_c^2$. In this letter I show that
$\eta/s \sim N_c^2$ in the confined phase of holographic models of QCD at large
$N_c$ defined in the supergravity approximation. Our results show that the
gauge/string duality can be used to describe not only nearly perfect fluids but
also extremely viscous systems such as a cold gas of glueballs.
