This will be a short guide on the process of aging wine in popular farming simulator Stardew Valley. As with all producible goods in the game, wine is just one of the ways you can make money from a farming product. Many people don’t even realize that just producing wine is not the end of the wine’s journey in Stardew Valley. The wine can be aged, which will upgrade it’s quality by one level every time the wine is aged.
Unlock the Ability to Age Wine
Once the player has unlocked and purchased the final upgrade for the farmhouse, the cellar, they will unlock the ability to age wine and other artisan goods. Along with the cellar, the player will be able to craft and place down casks which are used in the process of aging and thus, improving the quality of an artisan product by one level. The cellar comes ready to age wine with 33 casks automatically being included with the cellar purchase for 100,000g. This upgrade is purchased from Robin as with the other farmhouse upgrades.
How to Actually Age the Wine in Stardew Valley
Now comes to the part of actually aging the wine. Once you have made yourself any type of wine you can begin to age it. Simply select the item in your inventory and make sure your character is holding it. Move up to an empty cask and select it (on the PC version by right-clicking the cask). The player will then put the wine into the cask and it will start to age. From now on their is no other maintenance required. The wine will simply age on its own allowing you to get to other important tasks on your farm.
How to Take the Wine Out of the Cask
When the wine is finished a marker will appear over the cask indicating that it has been raised one quality level and is ready to take out of the cask. By moving to the cask and interacting with it you will be able to take the aged wine out of the cask to either enjoy with another player in multiplayer or sell for profit. Keep in mind also that most of the NPCs in Stardew Valley either love or like wine as a gift.
If you wish to take wine out of the cask before it has finished its aging process you can hit the cask with any tool. By hitting the cask with a tool like the axe, you will be able to get the wine out early and it will be returned to you in whatever state it is currently at. You will not break the cask by hitting it with a tool so do not worry!
Is Aging Wine Using Casks Worth It?
All artisan goods including wine follow a similar pricing structure/quality as other items in the game. The silver quality will raise the base price of an item by 1.25x, Gold quality by 1.5x and Iridium quality items will get a price boost of 2x. This means that if the original price for a product like the IPA is 200g, silver would be worth 250g, gold 300g and Iridium 400g.
Many players don’t believe that the time it takes to age the wine makes it even worth selling. It will take a total of 56 days to age a bottle of wine to iridium level using casks. This doubles the price of the item. 2 seasons is a long time in Stardew Valley but considering once you put the wine into the casks there really isn’t anything else you have to do. Just wait. I think it is a great ‘set and forget’ method of making money in Stardew Valley.
Check out this table which was sourced from the Stardew Valley Wiki to see what kind of items can be aged in the cask and how their values can increase. Maybe the table with make you think about swapping out aging wine for a different artisan good.
How to Make Casks for the Cellar
Once you have unlocked the wine cellar you will also unlock the ability to craft more casks for aging wine. You are not limited by the 33 that come with the farmhouse upgrade! To craft more casks you will need to collect 20 Wood and 1 hardwood. Wood is found from regular trees that can be cut down with the axe. Hardwood can be gathered from stumps and from the mines.
Casks are created from the crafting menu as with the other Craftable items in the game. Whilst casks can be crafted and placed anywhere in Stardew Valley, they will only actually accept goods and age products like wine if they are placed down in the farmhouse cellar. You cannot use casks outside of the cellar at all in the current version of the game.
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