New Wine Festival

Historical Overview

Origins

Wine Regulation

While wines and ciders have long been the main export of the Vinelands, and the Blossom Fields in particular, they have been strictly regulated by the ruling houses. While this has had varying success, with smuggling being a frequent issue, it has created a feigned scarcity of wine. By forcing vintners to operate through house-run companies such as the Blossom Fields Bottlers, the ruling houses are able to keep note of the frequency of exports to certain regions and adjust accordingly.
This control was tightest during the early and mid-Age of Rule, before and immediately after the Fall of House Braelea turned the Blossom Fields on its head. As this largely coincided with the height of Anharan Knighthood as a cultural force, particularly in the Vinelands, it meant the nobility of wider Anhara had many occasions, most commonly tournaments, to come to the Vinelands and consume wine domestically. These tournaments and feasts helped establish the Vinelands' reputation as Anhara's premier producer of wine amongst the nobility, and the enforced scarcity made it even more desirable.
Because tournaments and feasts within the Vinelands allowed nobles from other regions to consume their wine regardless of export laws, vintners and other members of the wine and cider industries began to congregate around these high class events. As the late Age of Rule and the Crossing Over saw the decline of exclusive and romanticized chivalry in Anhara, tournaments began to decline in frequency. Coinciding with this, wine export rules were loosened, thus decreasing the necessity for vintners to swarm visiting nobles in the Vinelands. By the Age of Men, while festivals were frequent, none had the large draw of foreign nobles that they used to.

New Wine Festival

With the conquest of the Vinelands by House Semillon in the 2nd Semillon Usurpation War, they were once again fishing for legitimacy. One of their methods was to double down on their attempts to bring back the Romance of Nobility, a popular literary genre from the Age of Rule focused around knightly adventures and the romance of court, as a way to capitalize on the Vinelands highly marketable reputation as a land of romance and chivalry.

"The girls were desperate to escape our apartments in the Grant to explore the boulevards of shopping, as I have been informed at length that the jewelry from here is all the rage in court at the moment." - Letter from Lord Thewisy home to his wife, on a trip to the New Wine Festival

By turning Surlee, and specifically the area around their palace of Terracetop, into a destination for nobles and those with money to spend, House Semillon allowed their wine and cider producers a new target, closer to home. The largest gathering of nobles in Surlee is in late Pyrae, when those who live in the Vinelands and Eastmarches are returning from the Cinquial Season in Meridia for the year. It is then that the vintners launched their attack on the nobles of eastern Anhara's coin purses, declaring the 22nd of Pyrae the date vintages of wine are opened, which would eventually turn into the formalized New Wine Festival.

Events

Opening Day

The New Wine Festival is began by the Lord Semillon announcing, from the gates of Terracetop, what new vintages will be available that year. From Terracetop the noble family, their court, and their guests proceed down to the Poncian Arch, where the grounds of the festival have been set up. Around the Poncian Arch are the most frequented districts, with most of the upper class shopping in the city being located in Windfall and the Grant, and the lower class just south in the Arm and the Spill. Regardless of the location, the stalls of family- and company-run vineyards open their newly available casks on the first day.

"The arrests for this year's New Wine Festival totaled 38, all seized by Free Company guards for disorderly behavior liable to cause embarrassment to the city, and all north of the Poncian Arch." - The Violet Velum

While the festival is open to all, its location is a give away that the experience will not be the same for all. Those of means generally stay north of the Arch, with the southern half being available to all others. The stalls which pop up around the Arch itself are available to all, as a sort of neutral ground, but like with all things, the most exclusive products at the festival are available at the most luxurious stalls, open to only those of status.

Middle

The second day of the festival sees a continuation of general revelry, as well as the start of business negotiations. While the average festival attendee is busy dancing and singing along to non-Braelea themed songs, the wealthy are tasting wines and more often than not, retiring with them to baths in the Grant for debauchery and politics. Behind those nobles stay their retinues, within which is often a castelain or butler, who is busy tasting the new wines to determine which to bring back to their lords' palaces, villas, and castles with them.
Alongside the courtly retinues, though generally somewhere south of them, are the middle men for companies and exporters. More common the further from the Crossing Over, especially once trade with the Litoric Islands and al-Tahat picks up, companies are trying their hardest to utilize the continually loosening export laws of the Vinelands.

Closing Day

After three days of song and dance, negotiation and bathing, the last day of the festival brings an abrupt change. The less adventurous nobles know to get out of town, often on a sight-seeing through the scenic valesides, for the last day harkens back to an ancient Anharan tradition. On the 26th of Pyrae, roles are reversed, and the upper class go south of the Poncian Arch and the poorer go north. There the lower classes have a grand finish to their festival, and many cap it off by spending careful savings from throughout the year in the shops of Clothiers' Row or the Ateliers' Cloister.

"We recommend strongly that no attendee of the New Wine Festival fails to plan sufficiently so as to have the time to explore the surrounding valesides. The Blossom Fields have earned their name, and if the opportunity arrises to return home through the flower-covered hills and dells, it ought not be missed." - Merchants' Roadmap of the Vinelands

House Semillon participates inconsistently, depending upon the mood of the city and the risk of confrontation with Braelea loyalists. However, varying amounts of nobles do wander into the lower half of the city, especially those from the Blossom Fields, who by-and-large have romantic ideas of what Surlee looked like before Semillon reconstruction. South of the Spill, these local nobles, as well as Thewisys and other fans of the idealized, chivalric and knightly culture of the Blossom Fields and the Vinelands, feel they are seeing a more realistic view of the city and its culture.

Primary Related Location

Surlee

Related Organizations

• House Semillon