Beers and Beards
Book 4: Chapter 45: Step by Step

I already knew the way to The Winery.

Not that I was a stalker or anything!

Because I wasn’t.

But… it was actually so close to the brewing school here in the boughs! Just twenty minutes by kododo. It was a public road, so why couldn’t I just… walk by every once in a while and admire the beautiful feldstone walls and ironbough gate, every inch made with expensive dungeon materials from around the world and covered in picture perfect runework and detailing? Was it a crime to try and peek through the wrought fencing for a glimpse of the other side?

Besides, it wasn’t like I was doing it all the time.

Just… once or twice.

Okay, five times.

So it was with butterflies in my stomach that we pulled up to the familiar sight.

“We are here.” Master Romero said, gesturing at the gate.

“Do we need someone to open it?” I asked, looking for a handle. “Or is it enchanted?”

“It requires a precise mix of my personal mana to open. Regrettably, I must attend it personally to grant entrance. There is a barrier over the entirety of the winery. Our only intruder in the past thousand years was when a rift opened up and a few tender sprites got into a fresh batch.” He frowned. “That was a bad year.”

So saying, he pulled a wand out of an interdimensional space and swung it lazily. Then he paused, put down the wand, cleared his throat, and hummed a tune instead.

As I watched, Mana gathered in his throat and then spun out in his breath to infuse the gate, which opened with appropriate majesty.

“Is that Raspberrysyrup’s musical casting?” I asked, astonished.

Romero nodded. “Yes. Are you a ‘fan’?”

“Actually, we’re friends,” I said, shrugging. “I’m surprised you know it. Didn’t she only present it to the Academy this year?

Romero’s gaze grew far off. “I do so love being surprised in my old age. And an entirely new field of magic is very surprising. We already know that music can affect the growth of plants, so could magical music give us even more superior wine? I admit that I’m still just casually learning, but I improve by the day.”

“It takes me months to learn new spells.” I grumbled. “And you’re just, casually picking ‘em up?”

Romero smiled his old man smile. “You will find it easier with time, young dwarf. Shall we enter?”

And so I finally stepped foot into the only winery on the planet. My nostrils flared as familiar sights and smells washed over me. The scent of oaken barrels and crushed grapes, laughter, birdsong. It was an overwhelming sensation, and I felt my knees briefly buckle.

“Are you well, Master Roughtuff?” Romero asked. “It’s quite nice, yes, I’m proud of it. But I wasn’t aware it was that nice.”

“Just reminds me of my old life, is all.” I whispered hoarsely.

Romero waited in silence for a few minutes as I recentered and just… looked around.

Honestly most Chateaus look pretty similar when you get around to it. Some kind of brewing building, usually made of wood. A separate barn or building for your fermentation tanks. Rows and rows of trellices, and a shed to keep all your manure and tools. And finally, a tasting pavilion, or an adjoining restaurant to charge people way too much money for a mediocre cut of pork-chop.

The Winery was pretty much the same, with typical elven flair.

An enormous white poplar with tree houses on every branch stood at the top of a small hill with pipes running along the branches. The buildings were simple thatched roof things in a style I recognized as “old elven”. A stereotypical fermenting barn lay beneath the tree, many of the pipes running to it.

And out of the way, just beside the barn, was the most recognizable piece of equipment in any winery.

A giant wooden tub, with some stairs running up to it.

I held my breath as we approached it.

It was quite a bit fancier than I was used to, with a dark sleek feel that spoke of dungeon material. In my Manasight, it glowed with the tell-tale sign of enchantments.

“A maceration tank.” I whispered, running my hands over it.

Romero’s eyes twinkled. “You really do know quite a bit about wine. Or do you dwarves crush your erdroots underfoot to make your Sacred Brew.”

I hesitated. “How much do ya know about me.”

Romero considered me for an uncomfortably long time before he replied seriously.

“Over my long lifetime, my general experience is that anyone that speaks those words is decidedly not interesting. I suspect you may be among those that are the exception to the rule.”

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I grinned. “Like people who say, ‘Do you know who I am?”

Romero grimaced. “Who are matched only by those minisculely minded morons who say ‘do you know who my father is?’”

We shared a laugh. Romero even wiped a tear away, then continued. “After our last meeting, I spoke with the new King Elijah. We conversed at length ‘pon your circumstances. I am aware of your unique origin, yes. It was one of the reasons I took this time. I would be interested in your unique viewpoint. Did you make wine in your other world?”

I nodded. “I was a vintner. A bloody good one even.”

“Among many? As you are art now, one brewer among many?” Romero looked wistful at the thought.

“Aye.”

“A lovely dream.” Romero sighed. “I apologize that [Copyright] will prevent you from practicing here.”

I hesitated. Barck had been clear that I wasn’t beholding to [Copyright]. Should I tell him? Eh, I wasn’t sure that it would work. May as well test it first; maybe I could make it a surprise for the old coot.

“I can still talk about it. And that’s almost as fun.” I pointed at the tank. “Can I go in?”

Romero held out his hand invitingly. “Certainly. I’d even let you take part in the stomping if we had any grapes. But alas!”

“What are the enchantments?” I asked, taking the steps up to the top of the tank. It was a big one, as far as foot-treading was concerned.

“They’re almost all of my own design. They control temperature, bacteria, and ensure none of the juices leak into the wood. Still others are for easy cleaning.”

I laughed. “We use a special alchemical sanitizer at the Thirsty Goat. Back home we always hated cleaning the tubs after foot treading. ”

“Truly? Did you use treading? I had expected something more hands-off, like a grinder, given the devices I saw in your school.”

“Foot treading, though I called it Grape Stompin’. And aye, it fell outta favour in my homeland. Most big wineries, my own included, preferred usin’ more industrial machinery like a combination grinder-destemmer. It was more time efficient and worked just about as well. But treading was still used in some places. In a country called Portugal, wineries that made Port still use foot treading. We still did it every once in a while fer fun and ta keep the tradition alive.”

“A destemmer!” Romero’s eyes widened. “That sounds most helpful. I still have my students pull the grapes off one at a time.”

I choked. “That must take hours.”

“We have naught but time,” Romero huffed. “And it brings us closer to the wine; it is by respecting the fruit of the vine that we become vintners.”

I couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. “But destemming by hand still sucks.”

“Oh yes. And they hate it, so I may ask for the design of that destemmer. Or not, it is an apprentice’s wont to be given busy work.”

“Uh uh. The destemmer is mostly just a rotating tube with holes cut in it and a paddle. I’d be happy to send my [Engineer] some drawings.”

“Smashing. Would you prefer to be paid in gold or wine?.”

“Wine!” I blurted, and blushed. “I do like yer wine. It’s some of the most amazin' stuff I’ve ever drank.”

“As that comes from another vintner, it has more meaning than you can ever know.” Romero said, smiling sadly.

“Honestly,” I said, stepping up the stairs to the tank. “I prefer foot treading. Usin’ a grinder you have less control. Some stems still get through, and if ya’ grind any seeds they add a bunch of off-flavours and tannins into the must.”

“Must?”

“Oh, uh, must is to wine as wort is to beer – ‘the sugary liquid that you ferment to get the good stuff’. The seeds, skins, and juice left after treading that you send to the fermenters. What do you call it?”

“Soulwater, as it’s made using a specific fruit from Anima called ‘Spirit Grapes’.”

I stepped into the tank, which was about the size of a buick. It came up to my shoulders, so it was a bit bigger than I was used to. On the inside it smelled faintly of wood and water. Most maceration tanks I’d been in had a faint scent of grapes, but the enchantments on this must handle any residuals.

“Y’know, it’s amazin’ ta me that across time, and even across worlds, tha way we crush grapes hasn’t changed,” I remarked. I lifted my feet up and down, imagining the feeling of grapes crushed underfoot, their peels slipping between my toes and oozing up to my knees. Sammy had always found grape crushing day a delight. We still did it from time to time and even released a special ‘Foot Made Wine’. Unfortunately, it was frowned upon by the US’s FDA, which made exporting it a losing proposition, but it always sold well in Canada. I didn’t see why it was an issue, the alcohol killed anything unsanitary, and it wasn’t like we were stomping with dirty feet or anything.

“Does it look like what you remember?” Romero’s muffled voice came down into the tank and echoed slightly.

I popped my head out of the tank and leaned my shoulders on it. From up here I was actually a head taller than the old helf.

“I’m serious. It's pretty much exactly the same. Minus the magic of course. Foot treading’s nearly as ancient as the concept of wine itself. Heck, even the earliest wine that we know of, from a place called Georgia in the Causcaus region, also used simple wooden basins to tread on wine by foot. That technique lasted for over 8000 years, and even in modern day people are still ‘foot treading’ their grapes.”

“Hah! Ours lasted for 8000 years as well.”

“You would know, eh? It’s just incredible how much things stay the same. Even humour. Our oldest bar jokes come from that time and region as well. A place called Babylon.”

“Oh? Let me hear it and judge.”

“A dog walks into a bar and says, ‘I can’t see a thing. I’ll open this one!’” I slapped my knee and guffawed.

Romero’s voice came a second late and politely blank. “I’m afraid I don’t see the humour.”

“Heh. Neither do we. The point of the joke was lost to time. We assume it must’ve been a pun or wordplay that we just can’t parse. Like: A giant walks into a bar, ouch.”

Romero laughed “Now that is a joke. Speaking of time, how did your Georgians store their wine? Did they use something more like your big metal tanks?”

“They actually used big underground clay jars called qveri. Clay was a popular way of holding wine for a really long time, actually. Amphora, kveri, dolium, tinaja; there were many clay containers for wine.”

Romero nodded. “Indeed. I used clay for the first few thousand years. It holds moisture well, and is easily made.”

“Really?” I felt a surge of excitement. There was a lot that wasn’t known about the origins of wine, and here was someone who’d literally invented it! I couldn’t wait to pick his brain! “What made you pick clay in particular?”

Romero gave a slow shake of his head. “I’m afraid I don’t remember much from back then. I do apologize, you learn a lot, but you also forget some things over the years.”

I pointed up at the poplar tree. “Want to tell me what you do remember while you give me a tour of the place?”

Romero gestured grandly. “Of course. Let us begin at the bottom, and make our way to the top. Such is the journey of our soul, and so is the journey of our grapes.”