Dream Life

January 28th.

We are blessed with sunny weather today, cheerful enough not to think of it as the middle of winter, so much so that even though it is before dawn in the morning pre-meal training, the sweat has erupted quickly.

After breakfast we headed to the village of Widial in the north of the city of Seawell to visit the vineyards and brewing facilities.

The village of Widial is just a kilometer north, leaving Seawell Castle to arrive in about twenty minutes.

The carriage stopped under the hill.

When you get off the carriage, there are vast, well maintained vineyards all around you.

There are farmers in the field who do pruning, but it feels relaxed that it's not a rush job either. They're noticing us, taking their hats and bowing their heads.

There were about twenty private houses with orange triangular roofs lined up in front of them, with even larger bungalow buildings.

"That building is the work place for brewing. Do you want to go see it from there first?

That's what Bernard Darnton, today's guide (attendant), says, pointing his finger at the bungalow building.

I checked with other members and headed to the brewery.

Were we informed of our arrival at the beginning, the villagers dressed in formal attire greet us? If you look at all this, you can see that the Seawell realm is rich. Because we can't afford to pay attention to clothes in the countryside on the border.

"This man is Derrick, the head of Widial Village and head of brewing here"

When Dalungton introduces him that way, Derrick, an old man with gray hair but a gusty body, pokes one knee and bows his head wide.

"Welcome aboard."

This is against Lawrencia and Primrose, the Duke of Ezarrington Orders. Of course, sometimes there is Victoria, the wife of Viscount Radford, the heavy town of the Marquis of Seawell.

Laurencia responds on behalf of "Thank you for the welcome" in a very natural way. When I look at him like this, I think again that he's living these lives in his birth.

The village of Widial has a population of about 300 and is divided into a settlement in the middle of the hill and a settlement close to the Seawell River. They say a settlement in the middle belly mainly cares for vineyards and brews in settlements close to the river. Even closer to the river, the lowlands are stretched with fields and dark green leafy vegetables like broccoli or kale.

Is it peaceful land, or there is nothing around the settlement where a wooden fence about a metre high hits the barrier to some extent.

Dalungton told me that the Imperial Army stationed in the city of Seawell was patrolling regularly and maintaining law and order.

The City of Seawell also has a branch of Adventurer Guild, but there are only about twenty adventurers, most of whom are scouts with hunters, who are just scouting in the woods while hunting mainly.

Outside the brewery is a beautiful stream, where a large water wheel is turning, pumping water up into a large barrel. It also seems to be used for domestic water and is constantly pumped up even when no brewing is taking place.

Heading to the brewery, there were also artisanal men waiting there who felt more decorated than usual. This time of year is in the middle of shipping work, but it's not the time to contend for time like after harvest, so I can afford that face as well.

By the way, the time of the grape harvest is killing me that I can't waste a day because the grapes in the field are at the same time the time of harvest.

The large door of the brewery opens.

Large wooden barrels, harvesting backpacks, etc. line up, but the brewing season has already passed, so there is a hint of grape.

I took a slow look at the facility.

The building itself is about ten meters wide and thirty meters deep, divided in three by a large door inside. The walls are solid objects made of stone and brick.

Sort the grapes harvested in the front room, grinding and squeezing. Ferment the fruit juice in the next room, filter where it has become wine and pack it in barrels. Barrels filled with wine are stored in an underground wine vault (carve).

The back room was a shipping place, with a large door and a lifting device that pulled the barrel from the carve to the ground floor and loaded it further into the carriage.

(That's a lot bigger than the village of Rasmore. Well, is it normal to have such a large field...)

I'm going to look at the equipment, but I only have the knowledge of brewing to the extent I found out in the village of Rasmore, and Dalungton asks me, "Any improvements?" There was nothing I could think of when asked.

Going into the barrel shipping place, this is the time of year when something to serve with new liquor is also piled up in the ground area, illuminating dozens of large barrels of light inserted diagonally through small windows for brightness.

Wines are shipped in about three months of age and can age longer. Even if it ages for a long time, it's about a year long, and this time of year, only the young wines we planted last fall are kept, and everything from last year has been shipped.

There is a staircase that leads to the basement behind the room, and we all go down.

The basement is illuminated with lighted demonic props, with more than a hundred barrels neatly arranged. The barrels ranged from old to new, and the colors were urban.

Unlike previous rooms, it was full of aromatic aromas of red wine and unique acid-like aromas emanating from young wines.

"Can you see the taste?," Dalungton asked, "Please," let me taste it.

I don't have a glass for tasting here. That's why I'll give you the glass I brought.

Derrick, instructed by Darnton with his eyes, approaches a nearby barrel. He turns the plug at the top of the barrel with the sound of cuckoo.

When the plug was removed along with the sound of the pong, it smelled slight but stronger until then.

When the wine is filled with a small pattern-like tool, it is poured into the glass even though it is slightly zero due to tension. The wine is dark purple enough to feel intense even in the distance.

Glasses will be distributed to everyone on the spot, including Laurencia and the others. Raise the received glass and make sure it waters down on the lighted demon prop to check the color. Inside the ruby-colored liquid, you can see a sparkling starch in the light, with low transparency.

(I knew it was a little cloudy. You mean filtration isn't perfect? Well, it's at the stage of aging in barrels... and it's a good color. Beautiful dark ruby color...... only the edges of the glass look purple. It's about time I drank enough to make this transparent, but it's still powerful enough...)

Mouth everyone where the glass has gone.

The new wine still leaves the fruit fragrance of the grape strong, but there were also notes that made the forest feel like soil and mushrooms.

(Yummy! I thought it was delicious when I drank it in Ezarrington, but for what it hasn't been transported, this one is better......)

Because the starch is not turning, or there is little egmi. However, because it is still too young, it feels flat without the unique aroma of red wine.

"What do you think? Our wine," Derrick asked. There's just an insulting look on that face that says there's no way a young man can tell.

I'll ignore it and share my thoughts.

"That's a good wine. The fruit aroma of the black grapes is strong, with a hint of wet fallen leaves in the woods. You feel the taste is slightly more acidic than just young. I think if I let him sleep for another month or two, the flavor and fragrance will be puffy and it will taste even better."

Derrick is circling his eyes at my thoughts. Probably surprised by my rhetoric. Darunton, who was beside him, had my thoughts in his hand. He had a good momentum in his notebook.

I thought I said a little too much, adding, "I don't think you can guess because it's amateur sentiment".

"There's no way the kid can tell the taste......" Derrick whispers, but he couldn't afford that look earlier.

After finishing my tasting, Darunton asked me questions.

"What about improvements? This seems delicious to me."

"When it comes to this wine, I don't think there's as much of an improvement as it is. I just thought it was a waste."

"Waste...... is it?

"Yeah, I thought with a little ingenuity, you might be able to make even more delicious wine."

Dalungton asks me in a cannibalistic way, "What's that like?"

"Before I tell you that, I'd like to ask Mr. Derrick something, would you mind?

"I wonder what it's like," Derrick says slightly.

"It's a barrel here, but it doesn't have any marks, but how do you manage it?

Can't you read the intent of my question, "What is management?" He asks back.

"When did you pack it in a barrel, which fields it belongs to, if there is a type of grape, which grapes do you use… does that mean that no such controls are in place"

Derrick doesn't know what I'm talking about. He's circling his eyes. And I started explaining, in a slow tone, how I managed to put my thoughts together.

"... whenever you say it, it will all be packed in a barrel within a month or so of starting the harvest, so it's around October. Besides, even if it's a field, it's up to this Widial Village field, and the grapes are pretty much the same variety... doesn't Master Lockhart know how to make wine?

At the end of the day it felt like asking what was strange.

"Yeah, I've never actually made it, so I don't think I'm more familiar with it than you guys. But wouldn't Master Dalungton, who was seen in Scotch's vault in the village of Rasmore, know what I mean?

Darnton couldn't keep up with the story and said, "Huh?," he leans his neck.

"So why don't we talk about this later and show you the fields?"

Behind me, Beatrice says, "What the hell is this?," he asks Sharon in a whisper. But Sharon hasn't grasped my intentions either.

"I think it's about quality, but I'm not sure. Maybe there are vines that are different in the field..."

Exactly. Sharon was poking a good line. But we didn't seed it here, we headed to the field.

Could Laurencia, who's lying next to me, tell me, "Can you tell me something about me?", "but he says," You'll see soon enough, "and doesn't answer.

"You're surprisingly mean," he says, "but I'm not being mean.

In the meantime, only Liddy has an extra grin about whether he realizes my intentions or not.

(Speaking of which, you used to talk about the world before. Maybe we talked about it then......)

When I started learning magic, I used to go to Liddy's room and talk a lot about Japan. We often talk about alcohol then, and I think we talked about wine.

When you enter a nearby field, you grasp the soil of the place unconstructively. Then, looking at the white soil mixed with pebbles, he collapses with his fingers to make sure of the moisture content.

(I knew the soil seemed to drain well. Is it calcareous......)

After breaking the polo and the soil, I pamper my hands and squeal the soil.

"The soil in this field is good soil, isn't it? Looks like good drainage. Is this what dirt looks like in every field?"

"Exactly," Derrick nodded loudly at my question.

"When was the vine planted? Victoria told me some of them are over a hundred years old?

Derrick moves his hands wide, explaining.

"As I said, this neighborhood will be a field for hundreds of years. However, the eastern side was planted when Nong was young, so maybe thirty years. Some other fields have been replanted because they have died. But the original seedlings belong to the grapes here, so they're the same."

"I mean, he said this is over a hundred years old tree, and about thirty years of relatively young tree on the east side. Some other things are different ages...... does that not change the yield or flavor?

Looks like Derrick knows what I'm trying to say when I get here.

"... the harvest does vary from field to field... but I don't think the taste will change"

"Are you sure? This place is sunny facing south. Easy to get into the shadows of the hills on the eastern side of the other side, doesn't the sun fall a bit better than here? I think better fertility in the sun. If fertility improves, the harvest will increase, and will the sweetness of each grain improve? Plus, drainage changes at the angle of the slope, and I think the moisture content of the grape fruit changes depending on whether the wind hits it or not."

Dalungton is desperately taking notes, whining "I see".

"That may be true, but not all grapes should taste the same in the same place. Such things are nothing but the shallow wisdom of an amateur."

Derrick is angry that he was able to get into it, or even gets rough with his tone.

"Sure, if you look in one room at a time, there will be variations, but overall, there will always be a difference in quality. I don't know if there will be as much difference between the normal and the off year, but there will be some difference. If only good quality grapes could be gathered to make wine, I wonder if they could be of better quality."

Derrick has shut up, but Dalungton has asked questions instead.

"In other words, he said we should properly manage which vines we made in which fields. So you mark the barrel so you can see that. That's it, but why record when you brewed it? If the grapes are the same and the fields are the same, then the quality of the year will not change?

"That's the best question. I think you should ask Mr. Derrick from here on out, what if it rains during the harvest?

"You can't harvest it when it rains. We'll have to wait till it's clear."

I just answered that when I said it was obvious.

"I don't know to what extent the difference of a few days in grape maturation will affect you. But what about what you harvest after it rains and what you harvest before it rains? I think it has some impact."

Derrick couldn't answer my question.

I think this is something I have no choice about. As we have seen so far, we harvest and make wine on a village by village basis, but we do not even carry out detailed quality control. As a result, it is thought that after the rain it will be more moisture and thinner sensibly, but we are not actually taking data.

"This is just a thought of me. It may actually make little difference. But we need proper management to make sure it doesn't really change. I think we can rationalize on that, but I think we should take solid data once and for all to make things beyond what we have today."

This was followed by a subdivision of the field, which explained ideas such as swinging the number.

I will add that I was more concerned about it in the storage bin.

"Wine is the same as distilled liquor, and the flavour changes dramatically in barrels. They should be checked when shipping, but they should be properly managed to see how the barrel affects the aroma and taste."

Dalungton kept track of everything.

But Derrick still wasn't convinced, he had a flashy look on his face.

"I think the wine here is very tasty, but there are more tasty wines than that. Could you wait a moment?"

That's what I'm saying. I'm heading to the carriage. Enter the carriage and remove bottles and glasses of wine aged from the storage magic Inventory while pretending to look for something.

And then we went back to the Derricks,

"This is my aged Seawell wine"

That's what I say, I open the plug and pour it into the glass.

I say, "Taste this," and I give it to Derrick. At first he had a surprising look, but when he put his mouth on the glass, that look changed to amazement.

"This is wine..."

The expression changes even more when it is included in the mouth. It went from stunned to bewildered, and even more like anger.

"This isn't Seawell's wine..."

"No, it's last year's Seawell wine. Dear Darunton, you're absolutely right."

Snort loudly at my words.

"Sir Zacharias is right. 'Cause I accompanied the transport, too, no doubt about it."

Still not convinced, he protests, "But this guy is completely different..."

"No, the wine you make can taste even better. Especially since what you just tried has the potential to taste just like this."

Derrick makes the face that he can't believe it.

"We have so many good wines, but we can look up even further. We leave it to luck now, but we can make the flavor better by the hands of people. That's the way I said it earlier."

"Ho, does it really taste like this guy? In the way I just did."

"Yeah. There's endless possibilities for wine here. I want it to be even better at the hands of the craftsmen."

In my words, "Okay. I'll do anything you can with booze like this one," he motivated. He also seemed to be an artisan who wanted to make better things.