Whine

Writers: Eimi, Leigh M-F.
Date Posted: 17th August 2017

Characters: Capwick, Berdaine
Description: Capwick finds an apprentice studying late, and does his best to help.
Location: Vintner Hall
Date: month 13, day 1 of Turn 8

Even though Cap was really enjoying the challenges of being Hallsecond, every once in a while he felt the urge to pay the distillery a visit. He breathed in the familiar smell of malt mixed with yeast bubbling away in preparation for the still. He had grown up around the smell. The familiarity of it relaxed him, quieted his mind and helped him think.

He descended down the stairs to the darkened celler. Walking between stacks of barrels with various different liquors were quietly soaking up the wood flavor as it aged, he saw a small glow peeking from between the gaps in one of the rows. He followed the light to find one of their young lads sitting at a small table, hides spread out around him.

"Well, now," Cap said with some suspicion. "Does the Master of Apprentices know you're here at this time of night?"

The apprentice looked up with bleary eyes. "For a moment, _I_ forgot I was here," he said tiredly, and rubbed his forehead before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ugh. Sorry, Hallsecond. I know I should've been in bed hours ago." He motioned to the hides. "I was just hoping to find something that could help me with my next batch of sweet wine. The kind made with the- the, uh- those musky grapes. My last batch turned out light, but also crisp, which wasn't what I wanted at all."
"The Master of Apprentices will be looking for you." And if he hadn't noticed one of his apprentices missing, Cap would just have to have a talk with him! "What's the rush?"

"I'm going to fail my exam, that's the rush," the apprentice groaned. "I said I could make a good moscato- oh, that's the word," he interrupted, and palmed himself in the face. "Ancients, I'm more tired than I thought. I said I could make a good moscato wine that was light and sweet, but not cloying. But my two small-scale batches have flopped, badly. The most recent one -the one that came out crisp- was decent, but not sweet enough."

"Son, you're an apprentice. Do you really think we would give you the best grapes we grow to make the perfect wine with?" Cap asked, putting his hands on his hips sternly. "Decent is good enough at this level. The Masters just want to know you understand the process. Perfection comes later, once you've proved you've mastered the basics. Which it seems you have."

"If that's the case, why is my wine turning out wrong?" the apprentice sighed. "People make something wonderful out of subpar ingredients all the time; sour wines can be turned into cooking vinegar, slightly overripe berries still make great bubblies, and even animal bones can become soup stock. So even if I don't have the best grapes, I should still be able to make something sweet from them, shouldn't I?"

Cap rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "All of those examples are ridiculous and have nothing to do with the problem at hand. Disgusting wine makes disgusting cooking vinegar, terrible berries don't make good bubblies without tons of sweetner added, and you can't just walk into any canine kennel, pick some bones off the ground and throw them in a pot and call it stock. Leave the drama for the Harper apprentices will you? Whining isn't going to get you results. Thinking will. Now how can you control the sweetness of a wine?"

The apprentice frowned in confusion, clearly wondering where Capwick was going with this. "By controlling the amount of sugars put in," he said slowly.

"Sure, you can add sweetner," Cap said with a shrug of his shoulder. At least the boy was starting to think! "You can add buckets full. It isn't going to help you, though, if you don't control one key process. What would that be."

The apprentice shook his head, rubbing his temples. "The fermentation; it can make or break a wine, and it has to be rigidly monitored-" He broke off, and his hands moved from his temples to cover his face. "Oh, Ancients. The timing. I think I've been letting my batches ferment too long. The time-" He searched through the notes. "Fardles. I misread the time it takes for a sweet wine to ferment."

Cap nodded, glad the apprentice found the answer without having to have it fed to him. "Yup. That would do it. You can't let the yeast eat too much sugar or the wine loses it's sweetness." But what worried the Hallsecond was why did it take the apprentice this long to figure it out. This was basic, _basic_ wine making. "Son, why did it take you all night to figure that out?"

The apprentice wilted, looking down in sheer embarrassment. "The numbers," he mumbled. "They- They flip around sometimes, and I don't always notice."

"The numbers thing is a problem for sure," Cap said with a wave of his hand. He knew it was an issue some people had, and that teachers with special training could help them with if need be. "But Berdaine, this is basic wine making. If your wine is coming out dry, there isn't enough sugars left. It was allowed to ferment too long. Forget the numbers. The problem isn't the numbers. Yes, you read the timing wrong, but it's not the numbers that you are having trouble with in problem solving this issue. It's the basic science of the thing. You are a Senior Apprentice. It shouldn't take you all night to come to the realization that dry wine means the yeast ate all your sugar. That is a much bigger concern to me than your problem reading the numbers."

Berdaine still didn't look at him. "I don't want to talk about it," he mumbled. "The journeyman exam is the biggest part of it, though. I _need_ to make a wonderful sweet wine."

"No, you need to learn how to make wine, first." And that was not going to happen dreaming of the perfect wine, but by getting his hands dirty. "I'm going to talk to the Master of Apprentices. I'm going to tell him that you broke curfew, and as punishment you are going to spend all your chore times and free times in vineyards and wine cellars. I'm going to get you assigned to Masters and Journeyman who will make sure that by the end of the sevenday you will know every potential problem that could possible come up when making a wine, and you will know what went wrong and how to fix it. By the end of the sevenday, you won't have to sit here all night wondering what went wrong, you will _know_. And _then_ you can try to make a sweet wine, 'cause I'm not letting you near another batch of grapes until I know it isn't just a waste of Hall resources."

Surprisingly, Berdaine didn't even try to argue. He just nodded. "Yes, Hallsecond." He started gathering up the notes and pulling the old-fashioned glowbasket closer so he could grab it more easily on standing.

Cap knew he was being tough on the boy, but his job was to prepare these young men to go out across the Continent to work their craft. Sending them out only half prepared was a disservice to them and to the Hold they were assigned to. "And I'm going to talk to someone about your numbers problem, too, Berdaine. That needs to get fixed."

"With all due respect, it can't be," the apprentice said, shaking his head as he stood. "It's been a problem since I was a child. I just have to be especially careful when I figure numbers. I just forgot to be recently. Stress and all." He nodded toward the door. "With your permission, Hallsecond."

His grey eyes narrowed as Cap crossed his arms once more over his chest. "Son, let's get this straight. You aren't the first apprentice who walked into this Hall with that problem, and you won't be the last. You are getting right up there with the whiniest, though. If I hear you trying to excuse away your incompetence one more time on it, I will personally see that you are held back as an apprentice for another Turn. You're right that we can't fix your situation, but we can fix your attitude towards it. This world doesn't give a tunnelsnake's turd for your problem, and you better just learn to accept that. We all have our short comings and our own personal hurdles we have to get over. None of us get to use them as an excuse to not do better in our jobs. Now go to bed."

Berdaine smiled sadly. "You don't have to worry about my 'incompetence', sir. The healers say my father is sick enough that I might not be here to be held back," he said. "By your leave." And he went for the door.

Last updated on the August 24th 2017

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Whine