#68 Vineyard of Tomorrow

Age: 90 Years

Hidden or Lost: Hidden

History: Can you taste the nutty minerality in the wine? The elements that have seeped into the grapes from the strange soil and the miracles that time and enchantment have wrought on the dusty bottle? Is that cherry you taste, or unbridled power? At the Vineyard of Tomorrow, you’re more likely to feel an eldritch tingle on your tongue than a note of flavor.

Located at the end of a beautiful, lonely road, amidst a rumble of ancient hills, the mysterious Vineyard of Tomorrow specializes in wines that grant the drinker powers, visions, or transformations. The vineyard was founded by the masked figure known only as the Blind Sommelier, a winemaker who has been able to elevate the art of the grape to supernatural levels.

The sides of the sun-dappled hills that surround the winery are covered in rows of carefully tended growing racks where the odd grapes grow. Fruit that’s the color of memory, or that seem to sing to you as you walk past, each strain is developed and encouraged along by the Blind Sommelier, who waters the roots with arcane potions concocted from blood and powerful humours.

The rows are broken up into four general sections: Grapes of Power, The Deadly Vines, Oracultures, and Hybrid Strains. While any of the grapes themselves are too powerful to consume on their own (leading to a number of explosive deaths involving local wildlife) when distilled down to a unique wine, refined by composition and age, they can grant one with boons ranging from invisibility or bad luck to futuresight or extra long limbs.

The enigmatic sommelier seems able to create a wine that will produce nearly any effect, but they keep their ultra-powerful bottles in a private reserve, including the single bottle labeled only, ‘a wine for the world's end.’ Even with all of the power at their fingertips, the Blind Sommalier is singularly obsessed with growing a perfect berry known as the ‘Heavens Eye Grape,’ which he believes will make him a true god.

The Vineyard of Tomorrow is protected by an unbroken perimeter wall, but once every 14 years the Blind Sommelier opens the gates for a special tasting where they invite guests to come and sample wines formulated specifically for them. Whether it will give the drinker wings or melt their skin is up to the grapes.

1. The Deadly Vines

2. Oracultures

3. Grapes of Power

4. The Hybrid Strains

5. The Hyper-Presses

6. Harvesting Armory

7. The Aging Stores

8. The Mansion of Change

9. The Tun Tower

10. The Blind Sommelier's Private Reserve

11. Drunkard’s Pit

12. The Tasting House

13. Palace of the Burgundy Change

14. Splicing and Crossing Lab

15. Vintner’s Library

16. The Crackling Pomace