Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 175: Chapter 141: Christmas

Time slipped away quietly, and soon it was Christmas of 1872.

This year’s Christmas at the Imperial Palace was much livelier because the palace welcomed the mistress, Queen Sophie.

Carlo himself didn’t mind much, but to prevent Queen Sophie from feeling bored in the vast palace, he decided to host a grand court banquet to liven up Christmas at the Madrid Royal Palace.

Banquets were not only an important means of social interaction for noblewomen but also a way for nobles to strengthen their relations.

Apart from Duke Jacopo and a few other nobles, Carlo hadn’t seen many Spanish nobles for quite a long time.

It was indeed necessary to use this court banquet to reconnect the nobles and deepen ties, as nobles were also Carlo’s support.

In fact, the root cause was the small number of members in the Spanish Royal Family. The entire family had only the King and Queen, making holiday celebrations quite lackluster.

Nonetheless, Carlo never compromised on his lifestyle. Although the Royal Family had only two members, the palace had over a hundred servants, with more than ten chefs responsible for cooking, capable of preparing varied cuisines from across Europe.

The clothes worn by Carlo and Queen Sophie were tailored by private seamstresses specifically for the Royal Family, with each garment costing over a hundred Pessetas, and some expensive dresses even exceeding ten thousand Pessetas in cost.

To prepare for this enormous court banquet, a dozen chefs skilled in European cuisines were rallied to make all sorts of exquisite dishes.

After years of development, Carlo’s wine industry had already become a well-known enterprise among the Spanish vineyards.

With Carlo as the King personally advertising it, the prestige of this wine was elevated unknowingly. Although the wine sold to civilians wasn’t the Royal Winery brand exclusively for the Royal Family, the production sites are all from the Royal Family’s winery.

The high-end Royal Winery had now become one of the main choices for noble banquets. After all, this was the King’s enterprise, and nobles were compelled to show some respect.

Even though many nobles had their own wine industries, presenting a bottle or two of Royal Winery wine at a banquet not only pleased His Majesty the King but also directly showcased the consumption of the event.

The wine from Royal Winery was quite pricey, much like Maotai in the future, regardless of the taste, the price was evidently there.

Precisely because of the high price, the wine produced by Royal Winery was rather popular among Spanish nobles and capitalists.

Due to being on the Iberian Peninsula, the wine from the Royal Winery was also favored among Portuguese nobles.

Additionally, because of Queen Sophie, a considerable amount of wine from the Royal Winery was exported to Austria-Hungary every year and was well received by the Austrian-Hungarian nobility.

Being one of the top ten wine-producing regions in the future, Spanish wines were known for their excellent taste and production volume.

Stimulated by the wine industry, Spain saw an increase in vineyards and collaborations with the Royal Family’s winery.

Compared to cultivating crops, growing grapes was more profitable. However, the Royal Family’s winery had strict requirements on grape varieties and quality standards. Poor quality grapes could only cooperate with small wineries to produce wines targeted at civilians.

Carlo’s winery also had a cost-effective wine brand called Iberian Manor. The quality of Iberian Manor’s wine was noticeably inferior to that of the Royal Winery.

In terms of both quality and packaging, there was a vast difference compared to the wine from the Royal Winery.

However, inferior quality and packaging also meant a lower price. The wine from Royal Winery was at least over a hundred Pessetas a bottle, equivalent to a Spaniard’s annual salary.

While the wine from Iberian Manor generally sold for under 10 Pessetas, with some priced as low as 2-3 Pessetas.

As for entering the market of lower-priced inferior wines, Carlo was temporarily uninterested. After all, the Royal Family’s winery couldn’t possibly monopolize the entire Spanish wine market, so it was better to target the more lucrative mid-to-high-end market.

Although the market for inferior wines had larger sales volumes, the profit per bottle was very low, driven solely by volume.

Currently, the Royal Winery occupied over 50% of the high-end wine market in Spain, becoming a common sight at the banquets of nobles and capitalists.

While the wine from Iberian Manor held about 35% of the mid-to-low-end market, the rest was occupied by Spain’s myriad other wine brands.

The wine market brought millions of Pessetas in fiscal revenue to the Spanish Government, even creating tens of thousands of jobs.

Plus, with the reputation of high-end wine exports boosting Spain’s wine fame, the Spanish Government paid great attention to the development of grape cultivation and the wine industry, even instituting supportive policies, encouraging citizens to plant grapes, and providing certain tax reductions for the wine industry.

In Spain, much land could be used for growing grapes, producing wines with distinctive Spanish flavors.