Vrone Oak

Vrone Oak is a specially bred oak used to make wine casks whose heartwood remains responsive long after the tree is felled and coopered. In use, the wood interacts with the wine, shaping its character during aging and reacting to how and where it is stored within the Concent of Saunt Edhar.

First Appearance and Context

Vrone Oak is introduced when an old firkin is opened during a celebration meal in the Refectory. The firkin’s staves are identified as Vrone Oak; in that context, this signals wine pressed elsewhere from the “library grape” and shipped here to mature in Vrone Oak casks.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Cooperage: Vrone Oak is fashioned into staves for casks. Its cells “sample” molecules drifting in the wine, release some back, and encourage others to migrate outward, sometimes precipitating as fragrant sheens or crusts on the exterior.
• Storage sensitivity: The wood rewards careful care and punishes neglect. Poor storage leads desirable resins, sugars, and tannins to ooze outward, leaving little of value behind.
• Environmental responsiveness: The wood prefers the same range of temperature and humidity as humans and responds to vibrations. Casks resonate with the human voice; wine aged in a rehearsal vault will not be identical to wine aged along dining‑room walls.
• Local practice: The climate at Saunt Edhar suits Vrone Oak, and the concent is known for its skill in aging. Casks “feel at home” in the Refectory and in the Mynster, responding warmly to the talking and singing there. Less‑favored concents ship casks here to age.

Relationships

• Paired produce: In the described scene, a Vrone Oak cask implies wine made from the “library grape,” a cultivar associated with work by avout of the Concent of the Lower Vrone. Parallel efforts at the rustic math of Upper Vrone Forest produced the oak used for cooperage.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Material: Heartwood that remains metabolically responsive in staves bound into a cask.
• Behavior: Actively interacts with wine; selective about storage conditions; acoustically resonant.
• Effects: Can contribute or withhold resins, sugars, and tannins depending on handling; the surrounding soundscape subtly shapes the outcome during aging.

Current Status/Location

Actively grown and used at Saunt Edhar. Casks of Vrone Oak are present in the Refectory and Mynster precincts, and other concents send wine in such casks to age under conditions favored by the wood.