Golden Gooseberry Wine
Golden Gooseberry Wine is a specialty wine drunk only at the capital during Selection Festival. The drinking of this wine and the toast given during it, mark the start of Festival (a period of the year when the kingdoms send delegates to the King and Capital instead of the King coming to visit them). The wine is made from Golden Gooseberries that can only be harvested from the Bramblewood during the year’s second rainy season. 90% of the golden gooseberries harvested during this time are made into wine sent to the capital for Festival.
Golden Gooseberry Wine tastes sweet and intoxicating, it’s light golden color resembling the finest of honey’s, and its rumored that the taste much be as close to the nectar of the gods as can be achieved in the mortal realms.
History
Each kingdom is traditionally supposed to bring the royal family a gift. The kingdoms each select one member (usually of the ruling families) that is newly eligible for marriage, called The Jewel, to present to their kingdom’s gift to the royal family at the opening banquet of Festival. The gifts can be anything, but the rarer and more valuable, the more favor the kingdoms think to receive from the royal family. The StarRise Kingdom has been bringing its rare Golden Gooseberry Wine for as long as anyone can remember. It’s become such an important gift that the wine is used for all the opening Festival toasts, and is served quite liberally throughout the rest of the night.
Execution
While other kingdoms vary up their yearly gifts, the StarSet kingdom is always steady, and with time they have become the last kingdom to present their gift to the royal family before the dinner portion of the night.
While the Jewel is sent up the receiving line with just a single bottle, the Starset Kingdom usually brings over 100 cases to gift the royal family. Those cases have been delivered to the back kitchens where a wait staff is readying the drinks for the rest of the court to be passed out as soon as the King accepts the gift.
The bottle delivered by the StarSet Jewel to the royal family (currently the Shadow King and his eight consorts) will be opened and poured by the Jewel for the King to take the first taste of this season’s wine. He proclaims the gift acceptable, and toasts to the waiting crowd as a signal to the wait staff to start the service of the meal and drinks.
Participants
All members of the Royal Family, the Royal Court, and the Kingdom’s entourages are expected to participate in the drinking after every toast. Members who are unable to drink (either they are too young or pregnant) are not sent to the capital to participate in any Festival activities, and these members of the Royal family and Royal Court will usually spend the season in another town to avoid the stigma of not being able to participate. To not drink after every toast is seen as the highest form of disrespect. Even the wait staff serving that evening will take a drink following the toasts (although their wine has been significantly watered down so that they’ll keep their heads).
The key roles in this very sacred ceremony belong to the King, the head of Festival, the one everyone else is paying respects to, and the Jewels of each kingdom. Their toasts are seen as especially important as all eyes will be looking to them as potential allied to be married off to. For a Jewel to not get married by the end of Festival is seen as a great failure, so every moment the eyes of the public are on them, they must shine.
Observance
Everyone at Festival is given a glass of Gooseberry Golden Wine for the opening toasts, and it is considered extremely bad manners if one does not drink after every toast, with wait staff buzzing around the room to make sure every glass is constantly being refilled. First, the King will give his opening toasts, a meal is served with the wine to the rest of the guests in the great hall, and then in order of the presenting of the gifts, each kingdom’s most important families will make toasts of their own (with it being considered unlucky if a kingdom can’t produce at least five members, not including the selected Jewel, to give toasts). Any other kingdom that brought a food as their gift, will have that food be served with the meal to be eaten around the constant toasts, until finally dessert is brought out for the Royal Court to give their toasts, and finally the King to give one last toast of the night.
The wine might be the best anyone there has ever tasted, but by the end of the night, few can remember (thankfully) the toasts of the Royal Court and the King’s final toast. This is thought to be the best part of Festival.
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