IF YOUR QUESTION IS "HOW DO I MAKE WINE?" THIS IS THE SHORT ANSWER:
- Build a Vineyard and plant a grape vine on it.
- Fertilize every 6 hours with any fish.
- Take a cutting every 8 hours.
- If you want more than 2 cuttings from your vine, water every 18 hours with a jug of water.
- Harvest when you think you have enough grapes.
- Crush 50 grapes 3 times in a Wine Barrel, seal it, bottle it in a glass jar, drink it at a ceremonial tasting table.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT GRAPES WITH NOTHING LEFT OUT, KEEP READING.
While the above information is all incredibly useful, I still had to ask around quite a bit to get the full scoop on grapes. That is why I compiled this section. Here is the stripped down version for people interested in breaking into the grape and wine business.
To grow any type of grapes, good or bad or whatever, requires a lot of time but very little actual attention. The most strenuous part is hitting the different independent timing cycles (explained soon) just at their peaks. However, it is entirely possible for someone working 40 hours a week to end up with a beautiful batch of high-class grapes in about the same amount of time that it would take someone with no obligations who is able to sit at his computer for 24 hours a day. These timing cycles, while they may seem at first to be a major obstacle, are actually the great equalizer in the grape world.
I'll go over several types of grape growing. These may seem familiar to people who have read the rest of the page as I will cover such topics as wines for tasting, distillation, festival ambrosiae, and banquets (feasts of the senses). However, I have tried to keep the inessential information and speculation to a low. The best way to use this guide is to read it all once, just scanning to pick up key terms. Then when you are ready to grow, find the section that suits you best and you can focus in on that.
Before we think about wines, we have to take care of some preliminary steps:
- Acquire the Viticulture skill from an appropriate University of Worship.
- Acquire vine cuttings. This requires a fish (Carp, I think) to get from a University of Worship, but most players are generous with cuttings for beginning winemakers.
- Build at least one Vineyard
- Build at least one Wine Barrel (requires a Small Barrel made at a Barrel Vice) near the Vineyard.
- Build a Kitchen with low-grade END Food (+10 or more but don't get ridiculous) in it near the Wine Barrel or you're going to be swearing a lot when it comes time to crush the grapes.
Here is all you need to know about timing when growing grapes as well as the significance of the values attached to your vines on the vineyard. Different target wines require different styles of care and will be completely discussed later on. For now, just absorb the terms and related times.
- Grapes
- The Grape growth-cycle is the shortest cycle involved in wine-making. When you plant your grapes, anywhere from 90 minutes to 3 hours later, grapes will start to grow. These grapes will continue to grow for about 3 hours and then peak. This peak is a period of about 30 minutes where nothing happens. After this 30 minute period, grapes start to vanish at a rate of about 1 every 60 seconds. This will continue until there are no grapes left. To start the cycle over, Fertilize your vine with a fish (any fish). This sets the cycle at the very beginning and in 90 minutes to 3 hours, you will see grapes begin to grow again. To make a long story short and simple, Fertilize every 6 hours after you plant your vines.
- Life
- The Life cycle is the longest cycle involved in wine-making. When you plant your grapes, the Life value starts at about 116 and slowly begins to drop. At about 25% of the starting value, Life turns around and starts climbing back up. About 18 hours after you plant your vines, Life peaks at 75% of the starting value and slowly heads toward zero. Life means one thing and one thing only: that ONCE EVERY EIGHT HOURS, you can take a vine cutting from your plant for use later. To reset the life-cycle, water your plant 18 hours after you plant it. Even with vigililant watering, this cycle will eventually reach zero. But by then, you should have more vine-cuttings than you know what to do with. In fact, you can double your available cuttings without watering at all.
- Concentration
- The Concentration is in the middle between Life and Grapes. When you plant your grapes, the Concentration score starts at 100. If you leave it alone, absolutely nothing happens to it. To start the cycle, prune your grapes once. Pruning deletes half of the grapes growing on the vine, so you have to get creative about how you manage this. (I get creative for you later on, so keep reading.) Once pruned, Concentration holds still for about 8 or 9 hours and then slowly begins to climb. Anywhere from 11 to 14 hours after pruning, Concentration peaks and starts to fall back to its value at the time of pruning. To keep the Concentration rising at a steady clip, plan to Prune once every 12 hours. Keep in mind that pruning LOCKS the Concentration minimum. If you prune at 100, it can never drop below 100. If you prune at 4102351, it can never drop below 4102351. This is important.
Now I will explain the differences among the different types of target wines. First, you have to understand that every result wine has six major characteristics. Five of these characteristics may be controlled by the grower absolutely:
- Tannin
- Tannin is governed by the Sourness of your grape juice. After you have crushed your grapes into wine, you may siphon a taste of your wine and a value for Sour will appear. The higher your Sourness is, the faster that wine will generate Tannin. Black Globe grapes are the best basic grape for Tannin production as they have a Sourness of 3. This translates to about 1 Tannin every 24 to 30 hours after your Alcohol has been produced. Make no mistake, high Tannin scores require serious fermentation time.
- Residual Sugar
- Residual Sugar is governed by two factors: the type of grape and how long the vine has existed. It does not matter what any of the numbers attached to your vine say. If there is a vine on a vineyard, it is generating Residual Sugar. Sugarskin and Honeydrop both produce something like 2 sugar for every 24 hours the vine is up. There is a difference between them which is important if you are trying for Festival wines or Banquet wines. This difference will be discussed in those sections.
- Alcohol
- Alcohol is controlled by the amount of Residual Sugar. Once the grapes have been crushed and the barrel has been sealed, Residual Sugar starts converting to Alcohol at a 1:1 ratio. That means if you harvest and crush grapes with 7 Residual Sugar, eventually that wine will have 7 Alcohol. Honeydrop grapes cap out at 12 Alcohol and Sugarskin grapes cap out at 11 Alcohol. No matter how long you let them sit, no more Sugar will be converted to Alcohol.
- Concentration
- Concentration is controlled by how you manage your pruning while your vines are growing. It is nothing but a number and has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT other than being high or low. It is only important for Banquet wines.
- Vintage
- Vintage is when the grapes were planted, nothing more. I'm not sure of the time-to-vintage conversion, but it won't be a problem for you ever if you follow this guide.
The remaining characteristic is Flavor. Flavor is partially controllable, and I absolutely do not know all the particulars of how to get specific flavors. However, it will be clear pretty quickly that aiming for a particular flavor may be more trouble than it is worth. Is this regard, Wine-making is much different from Beer-making.
The flavor contained in your grape is goverened by two factors: the LOCATION of your vineyard and the TIME PERIOD in which your grapes are grown (that is to say, the relative Vintage). If you plant 100 grape vines in a small area at the same time and harvest them all, they will all have the same basic flavor. However, this is when the Wine Barrel comes into play.
In any barrel, once your grapes are crushed, you may siphon a taste of wine and see values like Fragrant or Fruit or Vegetal. These values fluctuate as your wine sits, but predictably. They go through 3 or 4 interations and then stop. For instance, you may see 2 Fruit, 4 Fragrant. Then later, 2 Vegetal, 3 Fragrant. And so forth, eventually returning to start.
In a Steel-Lined Wine Barrel (which REQUIRES LEVEL TWO VITICULTURE WHICH NO ONE BOTHERED TO MENTION TO ME) the flavor of your grape (modified by the flavor values you see when siphoning) is the flavor of your wine. For instance, I had 16 loads of grapes my first time and every set of grapes I put into the Steel-Lined Barrel came out Banana Acetelahyde when I bottled at the iteration containing a Fruit score of 4. Every time.
HOWEVER, a NORMAL Wine Barrel has a nearly random flavor or flavor combination. From a similar load of grapes fermented in a normal barrel, I got like 50 different flavors (and could have had more but I was lazy). Furthermore, the Flavor Scores don't mean a damn thing in a normal barrel.
All that remains is to discuss the specifics of the four different target wines.
- Wine-Tasting wines
- The goal in wine-tasting is to have as many different flavors and flavor combinations as possible. For this, simply grow large quantities of grapes. Plant and fertilize every 6 hours. Don't forget to grab your one or two cuttings from each vine, but don't feel you have to water either (you don't). To make your wines, crush 50 grapes at a time in a normal barrel, seal, and bottle immediately. Clean out the barrel and start again. If you want to be fancy about it, crush 100 grapes, seal and bottle, taste to see if it's Oxidized/Acetelahyde. If it is, toss the remainder of the barrel. If it's a real flavor, pour another bottle and repeat the process.
- Distillation wines
- There are two different styles of distillation wines (High Alcohol and High Tannin) but you grow them about the same way. For high-boiling-point spirits like Fish, Vegetable, or Mineral, you need high Tannin. Plant some Black Globes, fertilize every 6 hours. Don't forget to take your cuttings. Harvest when you have enough grapes. Throw them all in the same barrel and crush them. Seal it, and start waiting for the Tannin to show up. It takes a while, but requires little effort as you can see. I recommend stopping around 9 or 10 Tannin but you can go for quite a while if you want. For Grain, Wood, and Worm spirits, you need high Alcohol wines. Plant some Honeydrop somewhere, collect your cuttings, and forget about them for a week. After that week is up, start fertilizing every 6 hours until you have enough grapes. Put them all in the same barrel, crush them, seal, and wait for them to hit 12 Alcohol.
- Ambrosia / Festival wines
- There are two different festivals that require wines for their ambrosiae: the festival of thoth and the festival of ra. You can grow these the same way, though, as the both require high alcohol and an age of 2 vintages. Plant some Honeydrop somewhere, collect your cuttings, and forget about them for a week. When that time is up, start fertilizing every 6 hours until you have enough grapes. When you harvest, crush the grapes 100 at a time in a steel barrel and 100 at a time in as many normal barrels as you have available. Let them ferment up to 10 alcohol for Ra or 12 alcohol for Thoth. When they are done, make one bottle of your wine and test the flavor. Then bottle the other half from that barrel and make it into ambrosia. The ambrosia-making process allows you to label the ambrosia so you don't have to spend time and resources labelling individual bottles of wine. For instance, you pour one bottle, taste it and see that you have Apple Oak wine. Go back to the barrel, pour the second bottle and make ambrosia out of it. Name the ambrosia Ra Apple Oak if you use 10 Alcohol wine and a date or Thoth Apple Oak if you use 12 Alcohol wine and a unit of ink.
- Banquet wines
- It seems as though these would be much harder, and they are a little bit, but they really aren't difficult if you don't mind working a bit and relying on a little luck. There are several requirements for a banquet wine: Residual Sugar, Alcohol, Tannin, Concentration, and Flavor. So you probably want to use Black Globes as they generate decent Sugar and Tannin. Plant some Black Globes somewhere, don't forget to take your cuttings. Prune them immediately. Keep the pruning cycle going until all of your vines are sitting at about 500 or 600 concentration. That is the hard part. Now let them sit for a couple weeks (Black Globe generates Sugar slowly, and you need a lot of Sugar). When that time is up, find your grapes and start fertilizing them every 6 hours. You want a LOT from each vineyard, so grow and grow. When you harvest your grapes, crush them 100 at a time in one steel barrel and as many normal barrels as you have available. Let them ferment until they have the appropriate levels of Tannin, Alcohol, and hopefully Sugar (there has to be enough Sugar to satisfy both the Alcohol and Sugar requirements of your wines). Bottle one, taste it, and if it's the flavor you need, bottle the second and you are done. Obviously this works best with as many barrels as you can make.
Comments by Nephte
I think there are some inaccuracies in this page.
1. In my barrels, Honeydrop caps at 13 alcohol and Black Globe at 12.
2. Vintage is determined when grapes are harvested, not when they're planted. And it's a straight numbering of months since the start of the game.
3. I've never noticed fermentation time making any difference to flavor. In your steel-lined barrel experiments, you mentioned getting the same flavors while Fruit is at 4. But did you get different flavors with different Fruit values? That would be news. In my experience, the only grape statistic that has any effect on flavor is Vintage. Everything else is determined by vineyard location and crushing ratios.
4. A normal barrel will give the same flavor as a steel-lined barrel, the first time you make wine in it. This is the "virgin barrel" effect that traps many beginning winemakers -- they build lots of barrels and end up getting the same flavor from all of them. To get a variety of flavors, you need to season your barrels by crushing odd ratios of grapes in them, or grapes from different locations or vintages.
Here's a quick way to start off your barrel ratios and keep them going. This example will use 6 barrels but it can be any number of barrels you like. I am assuming you have already grown your grapes and NOT lined your barrels with steel. To produce different flavours of wine, you must have a ratio of grapes that will make the flavours cycle. By using a different ratio in each barrel you will have a slightly different ratio and the flavour will cycle through all available flavours at different rates.
The Virgin Barrel:
When you first load grapes into the 6 fresh barrels, you will want to place a different amount in each. Start with #1 and add 51 grapes, in #2 place 61, #3 will have 71, place 81 in #4 and so on. This could just as easily be 51,52,53,54,55,56 but I have found that for the first batch, it is much better to use numbers that are quite different to another barrel. This sets up the flavour cycling rate that will determine the flavours of your wines for many generations of wines. As noted above, the first flavour you get will ALWAYS be the same for each barrel. This is sometimes referred to as the base flavour or starting flavour. The starting flavour is based on the location of the barrel, very similar to the way yeasts work in relation to kettle lcoation.
The Non-Virgin Barrel:
Once you've finished your first batch of wines, you will have some grapes left in the barrel and a bunch of wines with the same flavour. Empty the contents of the barrel (i.e. the remaining grapes) but do NOT clean out the barrel. While cleaning out the barrel doesn't completely reset the flavour to the starting flavour, what it seems to do is reset the cycle ratio to whatever the default is. From this point onwards, I always place the same amount of grapes into the same barrel to keep the cycle rate reasonably stable. To do this simply place 51 in #1, 52 in #2, 53 in #3, 54 in #4, 55 in #5 and 56 in #6. This means that after you bottle the wine you will have grapes left over, allowing you to empty the contents without cleaning it.
Once you have the 2nd batch done, you should notice that each flavour is different from one barrel to the next. Repeat this 51,52,53,54,55,56 method for every batch of wines you do from this point forward and you should only ever get a few duplicate flavours when the cycling rate crosses over with another barrel.
Quick note on duplicate flavours:
Sometimes a flavour isn't actually a duplicate even though the game says it is when you drink it. Take 2 wines, for example, that both appear to be "Apple Lemon" flavour. What this really means is that one of them could really be "Apple Apple Lemon", while the other is really "Apple Lemon Lemon". Since all wines have 3 flavours but these 2 example wines have only 2 unique flavours, only 2 will show when you drink them. When there are 3 unique flavours, this is much easier to detect because you might see "Apple Lemon Apricot" in one wine and then another wine might be "Apple Apricot Lemon" instead. These are all completely different flavours in regards to Wine Tasting points but not for Festvial Wines where extra flavours or the order of flavours does not matter at all.
Quick Festival Wines:
To make festival wines you just use the instructions above to get your different flavours, and instead of using 51,52,53,54,55 etc, you will need to use more grapes so that you have enough to taste one bottle to determine the flavour and a couple more to supply people with. So a good amount is to use 200 + the extra 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 etc grapes per barrel.
As noted above in the full guide, you need to wait for the Residual Sugar to convert to Alcohol before beginning to bottle the wine. The guide says to use Honeydrop for this but from experience I have foudn Sugarskin to convert Residual Sugar much faster than any of the other basic vine strains. Even though you have to leave the vines on the vineyards a little longer to get the Residual Sugar to form, than you would for HoneyDrop, you will still need to leave them on for enough time to get the large amount of grapes you need to make a few bottles from each barrel.
So as above in the guide but use Sugarskin, instead of Honeydrop, for faster fermentation.