"You strike me as a woman with a vivid enough imagination," Astarion remarked with a slow smirk, before leaning back and closing his eyes, summoning the sensory memory of the vintage to mind. "It's a red wine, but paler than the vintage we're enjoying now. Picture...the vibrant red of a poppy, rather than the deep, almost black crimson of a merlot. And every time the fluid moves in the glass, it sparkles faintly--gold, like the the last rays of the day's light shimmering on moving water. And the taste? Think of the sweetest, ripest summer fruit you've ever had the pleasure of sampling. Plucked from the vine and bitten into immediately...you can still taste the warmth of the sun on it."

He sighed softly, almost wistfully, as he opened his eyes. "That, my dear, is elverquisst wine. It's been quite some time since I've been able to enjoy a glass of it, but the memory is still sharp, somehow."