Probably Stolen: Wine Making Guide and Master Vintage Production Steps
Winemaking in Probably Stolen locks a bottle's tier the instant you press start fermenting, turning 42 credits of raw supplies into luxury Master Vintage bottles that gain value every night to help you purchase the shop deed outright. Inspecting bloom berries for top stems, filling bottles with 750 ml of high-quality water, and using a reusable yeast bioreactor guarantees a 6-point Master Vintage score on every batch.
Unlocking Winemaking and Inspecting Bloom Berries
Unlocking winemaking requires calling Joe Wild on the telephone and paying 200 credits (or 200 favor at a 1-to-1 ratio) for the winemaking kit and retired winemaker contact. Once unlocked, the retired winemaker visits once a week on Friday to sell wine bottles (12-credit base value), yeast packets, water rations, and eight bloom berries; basic ingredients for a single bottle cost roughly 42 credits in total. You can also source berries from hydroponic farmers or grow your own on a bloomberry bush if you run hydroponics, where keeping the plant healthy prevents moldy harvests.
Always inspect every bloom berry under a magnifying glass—using the same loupe controls detailed in our appraisal inspection guide—before loading a bottle, as berry appearance determines its hidden point value across five grades: small, normal, under-ripe, over-ripe, and moldy. Small berries are the highest grade (+2 points) and are identified by the visible green stem sticking out of the top of the cluster. Normal berries show a full dark purple bunch without a top stem, under-ripe berries appear red or orange (matching old berries in quality), over-ripe berries look wrinkly, and moldy berries display gray fuzz in the bottom-left area of the magnifier and subtract points.
Scoring 6 Points for Master Vintage: Water, Yeast, and Ratios
A wine bottle's tier is locked the exact second you click start fermenting; nothing afterward alters its grade across the six tiers: undrinkable wine (0 value), bucket brew (80 base value), home brew (around 100 to 109 base value), production wine (120 to 125 base value), reserve (150 base value), and Master Vintage. To guarantee Master Vintage, the ingredients inside the bottle must total 6 points or higher before fermentation begins. A wine bottle holds 750 ml of water plus either three berries or two berries and one yeast packet.
Putting two or more berries into a bottle grants a +1 multi-berry bonus, and adding yeast grants another +1 point while preventing unfermented spoilage. For the 750 ml water fill, high-quality water refined through water purification gives the exact same maximum score as pure water, whereas anything below base water subtracts points and risks turning the batch into undrinkable wine. Combining 750 ml of high-quality water, one yeast, one small berry (+2), and one normal berry—or two small berries—hits the 6-point threshold for Master Vintage every time, while two normal berries with yeast and high-quality water yields 125-credit production wine. Without yeast, fermentation takes 4 nights; standard yeast finishes in 2 nights, super yeast finishes in 1 night, and synthetic yeast counts as contraband. Buying a reusable yeast bioreactor from Jackson gives 2-day fermentation and returns immediately to your inventory as soon as you press start fermenting so one bioreactor can seed unlimited bottles.
Overnight Aging, the Agewell Machine, and Luxury Sales
Every drinkable wine tier appreciates in credit value each night after fermentation completes: bucket brew gains roughly 2 credits per night (such as rising from 205 to 207), home brew gains 3 credits (355 to 358), production wine gains 3 to 4 credits (354 to 358), reserve gains 5 credits (393 to 398), and Master Vintage gains 5 to 6 credits per night (606 to 611). Because jumping from production wine to Master Vintage adds more value upfront than 10 days of passive aging, always prioritize hitting the 6-point recipe before worrying about long-term storage.
Once you have Master Vintage stock, purchase the battery-powered agewell (age wall) machine from Jackson, which holds six bottles and doubles nightly aging speed to generate 36 extra credits of value every night across a full load. While lower tiers carry only substance and alcohol tags, reserve and Master Vintage also carry the luxury item tag. Placing two Master Vintage bottles inside your display case attracts wealthy alcohol buyers, allowing you to offload aged wine alongside discounted Red Imp beer crates (which gain another 20% price bonus when chilled in an upgraded fridge, as covered in our bargaining guide).