DAYS OF WINE AND RENCES

DAYS OF WINE AND RENCES making a living in your backyard

COCO ST. GEORGE

After being in Second Life for a few years, something inescapable happens: You find a few places you like the most, and even a single spot where you feel at your best. That place usually is your home if you are lucky enough to have one. And you don’t need to own the place; a modest $L50-a-week rental may be all you need to feel at home.

But I’m digressing. If you read my article in the October issue, there’s a good chance that by now you are a seasoned brewer, with a nice number of rence beer barrels under your belt, and the corresponding parties and hours of good time among friends. And maybe you’re willing to escalate to the next level and try your hand at something a little more complicated.

Very well, so now let’s review the procedure to make wine. Wine is the product of fermenting grapes. And if you want to have grapes, you need a vineyard. Or two… or as many as you can afford. But we better talk about that later. First, you need a vineyard and to buy one, point your teleporter to Guardian de las Sombras, the original maker of this whole system. Of course, you could also search the Marketplace to buy a vineyard but going there in person allows you to see other offerings you may have not considered before. Besides, you’re going to need the free HUD, and you will find it there too. And since you are already there, don’t forget to join the support group, in case you have any questions later.

And now I realize why I was talking about your favorite place: you need land to rez the vineyard and take care of it. Don’t worry you only need a 5m x 2m piece of land to keep it. Once your vineyard is rezzed, it will need water and cares. To care for the vineyard, you’ll need a sickle which you can find at the Market. Look for the master’s sickle, which provides better performance than the regular one.

Are you wearing the HUD now? If so, you’ll notice a grey bar; that’s your energy meter. Yes, it’s empty now. To gain energy, you need to eat. And the simplest thing you can eat is bread. Remember you made beer from rence? Well, you can also make bread if you grind it and cook it. Let’s see how that is done.

If you don’t have a rence bale at hand, you can buy it right at the market for one linden a bale. Now, rez the bale next to the rence grinder, sit on the grinder, accept the animation, and click “Load” on the menu you’ll see. The rence bale will disappear, which means it is now in the grinder. Click “Grind” and in a short time, you’ll have one sack of fine rence flour!

Now you need water. At the market’s corner, you’ll find a wind water pump that delivers barrels of water for free. Click it and wait to receive your barrel. Next to the grinders, there are cauldrons you can use freely to cook. Rez the barrel of water and the sack of rence flour next to one of the cauldrons and click it. You’ll see a message it is looking for ingredients, and then a menu listing whatever ingredients it found. Now, the order in which you add the ingredients in the cauldron is very important, so choose first the flour, and then the water. Once both ingredients are loaded, click “Cook”, and wait a few minutes to receive your

This process is known as Guardian de las Sombras, are you willing to escalate to the next level and try your hand at something a little more complicated?

freshly baked bread! Rez it, click it, choose “Eat” on the menu that will appear, and bonne appetite! Delicious!

You’ll see that eating that bread gave you energy points, which now appear on your HUD (~20%). You may want to cook several pieces of bread to achieve a 100% level of energy. Don’t worry about the ingredients. The bale of rence you just ground gave you a sack with 15 servings of flour, so you have more than enough to bake several pieces of bread. And in case you need more water to cook, now you know where to get it. And come to think of it, now that you are already there, grab several barrels, maybe five. You’re going to need them for the vineyard.

All right, the vineyard! Let’s go back home to rez it. The first menu you’ll see is the language selection. Select whichever suits you best and move forward. You’ll notice the vineyard looks dry. Of course, it’s been inside a box only God knows for how long. Rez one of the barrels next to it to begin the process of growing your grapes.

I hope you remembered to buy the master’s sickle at the market because this is when you’re going to need it. (I suppose you’re wearing your HUD too.) Wear the sickle and wait for the message to appear, saying all systems are ready. Also, on your HUD you’ll see an icon for the sickle. That means you’re ready to take care of your vineyard. Great. Now click the vineyard and you’ll get a menu with key information. What you are more concerned about now is the lines Water and Care. You may have up to 6 levels of water; of course, since you rezzed a water barrel nearby, that issue is already covered. The water won’t last forever, though, and when it’s depleted, the barrel will disappear. So, it’s easy to tell if your vineyard needs water when you see there is not a barrel of water next to it.

Now, about the care. You will see something like 0/3, meaning the vineyard hasn’t been cared for at all (0). Chose “Cares” and wait for the message to appear saying nothing went wrong, and that you successfully took care of your vineyard. You may wonder what can go wrong in such a simple operation. The answer to this question is complicated; let’s just say that it involves a random algorithm and that sometimes the care may fail. What do you do in case you fail? Persist: wait a few moments and try again. Failures very rarely happen twice in a row.

What happens next? You wait. How long? Well, let me explain something first. A vineyard may yield up to three harvests at a time, meaning you’ll have three baskets of grapes, which in time will become three barrels of wine. Above the vineyard, you’ll see a text indicating its progress, as a percentage, from 0% when you first rez it, to 300% which is when you may get up to three harvests. Going from 0% to 300% takes around two weeks. But remember the random algorithm? In this case, it also rolls the dice, and you may get only two harvests, even if the process is at its full 300%. You may stack the odds in your favor by taking care of it often (at least once a day), keeping the water available at all times, and keeping your energy level as high as you can by eating frequently.

That’s why you may want to have more than one vineyard, to get more harvests and more frequently. That is if you think you would like to produce wine for selling it. The time needed to grow the grapes, and to mature the juice into wine

means you can have two or three barrels of wine (one per harvest) in two weeks, four days, and four hours. Such a meager production wouldn’t be profitable. It’s enough, though, for your personal needs and to entertain your friends.

Fast forward two weeks and now the process is at 300%; you clicked the vineyard, and it told you the number of harvests is 3. Congratulations, what an auspicious start! Now, to pick up the grapes you need a basket. You can buy one at the market, of course, or if you want to go deep into it, weave it yourself. That can be fun, for sure, and you may save a few lindens in the process.

Let’s go back to the market, where you’ll find a weaving station in one of the corners. Sit on it, rez your rence bale next to it, and choose “Load Rence” on the menu that appears. Your rence disappears after is loaded, and now you can choose “Manufacturing”. You may select one of four models for the basket. All of them work the same, and the only difference is how they look. After you chose the model, you’ll see a message saying how long it will take to weave the basket. Once it’s done, you receive an object that you must rez right there. That object will become your basket, and you’ll be able to use it 50 times. Not bad for a one-linden bale of rence, right?

Back to the vineyard! Rez the basket next to it, click the vineyard, and select “Harvest”. Whatever number of harvests you have, two or three will be contained in your basket. Perfect! You are now the proud owner of a basket full of grapes you grew yourself. How cool is that?

Now that you have grapes, you need to press them to make juice. You may buy a winepress, of course, but you also may use the one at the winery for free. If later on, you decide this may be a trade for you, then sure, by all means, buy your press to use it from the comfort of your home.

Before going to the press, look around the market stalls and buy as many barrels as harvests as you have. They should cost around L$ 10 apiece. Now rez the basket and the barrels next to the winepress, click it, and choose “Press”. You’ll be presented with the option to “Fill” or “Normal”. If you have more than one harvest, choose “Fill”; otherwise, clicking “Normal” will give you only one barrel and you will lose the rest of the harvests.

That’s the final step in the winemaking process: you now have a barrel full of grape juice that will mature in four days and four hours, as you can see in the text above it. A new observation about randomness: in this case, the algorithm also plays a part and, after the time has elapsed, you may find that your grape juice matured into wine, but that it is still maturing further. That means you are going to get a reserved wine. Achieving that level takes another four days and four hours. And even then, you might be in for another surprise: your reserved wine may be maturing further into great reserve! Yes, another four days and four hours, and you may have the most appreciated kind of wine there is a great reserve.

I sincerely hope you will find this experience as fascinating and appealing as I did. And if you decide to dig deeper into the [G&S] system, you’ll find there is a whole new world with exciting places waiting for you to discover them. And, who knows? Maybe one day you’ll find that those places are also some of your favorite spots in Second Life.

If you’d like to see more detailed instructions about winemaking and other [G&S] processes, check the help from Guardián de las Sombras (in both Spanish and English).