Eswick Blue

The crystal glass glistened in the afternoon's sunlight as the Waterford patterns in the goblet refracted the light. The indigo brilliance of the decanted liquid rolled as he swirled the drink in his glass. The first gentle sip rolling down his tongue each taste bud capturing the very minute essences of the wine. Flavors of seasonal berries with a hint of vanilla and cardamom with a hearty earthy body. The feelings of euphoria and as if time nearly stood still raced through his brain. Never before had he experience such pleasure from drinking a glass of wine, well worth the hundred gold pieces he spent for the small glass.

- Tasting thoughts of Sir Aldrick

An Ancient Delicacy Returns

This very unique and rare wine was first created by the elves. The elves believed these rare grapes not only enhanced their magic but also increased their life span, however, no empirical evidence was ever found to confirm or contradict those beliefs. The oldest bottle of this blue wine was found to be thousands of years old, under various different elven winery names. The oldest bottle and only known still intact is believed to be over five thousand years old. This bottle was bought at auction by the first Lord Eswick for over fifty thousand gold pieces, a grand acquisition for one of the largest vintner in all of Durlon.

Eswick Wine

Eswick Wines luck of having bought one of the first bottles started the race to discover how the wine was created. For many years the blue grapes were believed to be a bad mutation that would occasionally grow and due to the taste of the grape being rather off-putting they were either used to feed livestock or disposed of as garbage. Nearly fifteen hundred years ago, Jeral Eswick, was the first vintner to experiment with the grapes to see if they could be of any use in a more profitable fashion rather than losing money every time they grew. As the story goes among the family...Failure after failure haunted young Jeral as he tried different fruits, different spices, different barrels, and different mash techniques over the next two years. In the depression of his failure, he put together on last mash and after setting it up for fermentation he was called away on business for much longer than he intended, keeping him away for nearly a month. Upon his return, expecting his mash which has been fermenting long past the standard for other wine, he opened the barrel and was treated to the most amazing fragrance he'd ever experienced in his many decades of winemaking. Sampling the mash he found the mix of flavors was the most complex but delicate creation he'd ever tasted. Having discovered the longer fermentation time needed for these rare grapes, he was prepared for the next blossom.

The Rise of Eswick

The first bottling of Eswick Blue was during the fall of 8236 AC. Jeral, unveiled the first bottles during the Lakeshore Wine Festival of the following year. During the tasting the upper class was astonished by the flavor the wine produced, commenting they'd never tasting anything like it before. Immediately a bidding war began on the spot for bottles among the nobles with the first case selling for over twenty thousand gold pieces a bottle. Within the next hour, all the bottles had been sold, bringing to the vintner more money than he'd ever seen in his life. The word traveled quickly among the nobles of Durlon and eventually across all of Rinas, even to the king's ears and the Eswick family earned a royal warrant appointing them as sole purveyors of wine to the royal family. Since that time, the popularity of Eswick Blue and the rest of their creations have become well know over all of Rinas.

Manufacturing process

Eswick Blue is made from combining and fermenting the juices of the rare Blue Grape with other fruits and spice combinations. Every batch that is processed by Eswick Wines has a new blend. The fermentation of any blend with Blue Grapes takes nearly a month, which is almost double that of your standard wine fruit. The aging process of this wine is given a minimum of one month in barrel before bottle aging begins. The bottles are then stored in underground storage to continue the aging process, which lasts at least two years before any bottle is pulled for the final seal. The final corking and seal completed, they are label and offered for an exclusive clientele. Each harvest produces only about five hundred bottles of wine.

Blue Wine by Aegon

Item type

Consumable, Food / Drink

Current Location

Eswick

Rarity

Due to the limited flowering of the rare blue grapes, which only grow once a season roughly every 5 years, Eswick Blue is an extremely rare vintage. These grapes have not been found to grow anywhere else within the Durlon Kingdom and give a monopoly on the supply of this decadent wine. It is rumored they do grow in other places around Rinas as well.

Base Price

50,000+ gp / bottle

Raw materials & Components

Blue Grapes, Herbs, Fruits, Spices