The Witcher 3 Blood and Wine Guide: Toussaint Secrets and Best Rewards

Toussaint is The Witcher 3's victory lap. Sunny hills, storybook knights, wine on every table, and a duchess who actually pays her witchers on time. Under the postcard shine there's a vampire mess brewing, plus a run-down vineyard with your name on the deed. Blood and Wine is the last big chapter of Geralt's story, and a lot of its best rewards are strangely easy to walk past. Here's the route through the duchy, from the first notice board posting to the choices you need to get right before the ending locks in.

Getting to Toussaint Early

Two ways through the door

Blood and Wine has one real requirement: finish A Poet Under Pressure back in Novigrad. That's the level 13 job where you spring Dandelion from the witch hunters. Once it's done, a notice called "Appeal to Sir Geralt of Rivia, the Bridge his Crest" starts showing up on the notice boards back home, and the Velen boards carry it for sure. Read it, then meet the two knights errant, Palmerin and Milton, at Holloway out by Stonecutters' Settlement, southwest of Oxenfurt. You'll come across them squaring up against bandits. Pitch in, or talk them out of it. Either way they escort you south, and from then on Toussaint sits in your fast travel menu for good.

There's a second door, too. The main menu has a standalone Blood and Wine option that hands you a pre-built level 34 Geralt with gear to match. Fine for a quick tour of the duchy. Just know it's its own save - your choices, gear, and romances from the main game don't come along, so the vineyard epilogue loses most of its punch.

How early can you actually go?

The opening quest, Envoys, Wineboys, is suggested at level 34, and the region isn't bluffing. Toussaint's side content runs from the mid-30s up into the high 40s - The Warble of a Smitten Knight sits at 35, Wine Wars: The Deus in the Machina at 42, There Can Be Only One at 43. There's no hard level gate on your regular save, though. Roll in around level 25 with solid gear and fresh oils and you'll scrape through the opening quests. Roll in at 15 and the local wildlife will fold you in half.

The comfortable window is just before the base game's final act, somewhere in the low 30s. The story also lands better once Geralt's own arc is nearly wrapped. And travel is free both ways, so you can do a chapter here, pop north for a main quest, and come back for the wine whenever.

What going early buys you

Three things make an early trip tempting. First, crowns: Toussaint jobs pay serious money compared to Velen's coppers, and you'll want savings, because fixing up the vineyard runs 14,000 crowns start to finish. Second, shopping: Beauclair merchants stock high-level diagrams, armor dyes, and better alchemy supplies than anything up north. Third, storage - the stash chest at your estate works as a free bank for your hoard, and you get the estate very early in the storyline.

Vineyard Estate Upgrades

How the deed lands in your pocket

The Beast of Toussaint, the main quest right after you arrive, ends at the tourney arena with you beating a shaelmaar in front of a crowd. Anna Henrietta's thank-you gift is the deed to Corvo Bianco, handed over as a down payment on the bigger contract. Ride west to the estate and the majordomo, Barnabas-Basil Foulty, introduces himself and kicks off No Place Like Home. He's your renovation guy from that point on.

What everything costs

Round one has three projects, and the big one has to finish before the rest unlock:

| Project | Cost | Build time | | --- | --- | --- | | General house renovation | 5,000 crowns | 3 days | | Armor repair table | 1,000 crowns | 1 day | | Grindstone | 1,000 crowns | 1 day |

Then a second wave opens up, in any order you like:

| Project | Cost | Build time | What it does | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | New bed | 1,000 crowns | 1 day | +1,000 Vitality for 2 hours after sleeping | | Extra weapon racks | 500 crowns | 1 day | +2 display racks | | Extra armor stands | 500 crowns | 1 day | +2 display stands | | Guest room | 1,000 crowns | 2 days | Room for a late visitor | | Stable | 2,000 crowns | 2 days | Doubles Roach's stamina for an hour | | Garden | 2,000 crowns | 2 days | Herb beds, plus dye and mutagen perks |

The full bill comes to 14,000 crowns - that's the wiki's own math, not a guess. Build time passes through meditation or ordinary wandering, so order the house renovation first, then queue the rest as you go questing.

What you're actually paying for

The buffs are the real draw. Sleep in the new bed before a boss fight and you carry 1,000 extra Vitality for the next two hours. The stable doubles Roach's stamina for a full hour after each visit, which quietly makes every ride nicer. The finished house adds a library that bumps combat XP by 5% for a stretch, and down in the cellar there's a cracked wall hiding an old lab. Blast it open with Aard. That lab unlocks mutagen conversion, and oils, potions, and bombs brewed at its station come out with a bonus charge.

Buying every project also pops the Playing House achievement, and Barnabas will declare the house perfect. If 14,000 sounds steep, the hanse bases covered below are basically an ATM.

Knight Errant Quests Worth Doing

Knight for Hire

Grab the Ducal Camerlengo's notice off any Toussaint board, then find him at Knights Dormant Square in Beauclair. His contract covers 15 trouble spots around the duchy: three hanse bases (bandit fortresses at the Arthach Palace Ruins, Mont Crane Castle, and Tulasens Caves), seven abandoned sites, three knights errant pinned down by thugs, and two captured travelers. Every site you clear and report pays 100 crowns, and finishing the lot earns 300 XP plus a trophy for Roach's saddle.

The hanse bases are the fun part. Each one holds a small army with a named boss, and some grunt will bolt for a signal fire to call reinforcements unless you cut him down early. Here's the sneaky money trick: as long as the boss stays alive, the rank and file respawn every time you leave and come back, and their dropped swords sell for 100-200 crowns each. Players fund entire grandmaster gear sets this way.

There Can Be Only One

This one hides the best weapon in the DLC. Head to Lac Célavy, the little lake northwest of Beauclair, and find the hermit on the central isle. The catch is that you need to have shown Toussaint's five chivalric virtues - valor, honor, compassion, generosity, and wisdom - and the game tracks them silently across quests you'd never connect. Spare the shaelmaar in the arena? Compassion. Tip the letter boy 5 crowns? Generosity. Win the tourney? Valor. The kind part: proof earned before you ever find the lake still counts, so an old save does most of the work for you.

Pass all five and the hermit challenges you to a duel for the sword resting under the lake. Win, the Lady of the Lake herself surfaces, and Aerondight is yours - a relic silver sword that hits harder with every blow it lands in a fight. It costs nothing but good manners, and it'll carry you through the rest of the game.

The Warble of a Smitten Knight

Level 35, at the tourney grounds. Guillaume, a lovestruck knight, wants help with Vivienne, who's hiding a curse. The quest runs you through the tournament itself - horse race, archery, melee brackets - and the name you register under (your own, or the alias Ravix of Fourhorn) decides which shield you can later hang on your wall at home. Take the mounted duel against Prince Anséis when it comes up, and winning the whole tourney locks in your valor virtue. There's also a choice about Vivienne's secret partway through; keeping it counts toward honor.

Raging Wolf

Beauclair's fight circuit. Work the bracket, beat Maestro at the end, and the fistfighting championship trophy goes to the stand in your bedroom. Quick, punchy, and it ticks off another virtue while you're at it.

Turn and Face the Strange

Not a knight job, but the other must-do. After the main quest Blood Run, a boy delivers Geralt a letter (from Yennefer, or Triss if you romanced her) pointing at Professor Moreau's buried laboratory. The trail starts at Orlémurs Cemetery and ends in a lab full of panther statues, portal puzzles, and a machine shaped like an iron maiden. Finish it and the whole mutation system opens up - the late-game character powers that make a strong build ridiculous. Tip the boy 5 crowns on the way in; that's the generosity proof talking.

Corvo Bianco Customization Options

Displays and the trophy corner

The main hall's stands and racks exist purely for showing off. Full witcher armor sets look great spread across the armor stands, and the extra stands and racks you buy from Barnabas add room for more. The bedroom gets a trophy stand that fits three prizes: the fistfighting championship trophy from Raging Wolf, the Gold Stick of Joy from Marlene's late quest, and the Victor's Cup from the gwent tournament. Out near the wine cellar door there's a pedestal waiting for the Reginald figurine, should you dig one up somewhere out in the duchy.

The painting wall

Seven blank spots: four in the main hall, two in the bedroom, one upstairs. Dupont & Sons in Beauclair sells filler paintings for 20 crowns apiece, which is cheap as dirt. The fun ones come from quests:

• Portrait of Geralt, from A Portrait of the Witcher as an Old Man - eight possible versions depending on your answers, and it'll run you 1,000 crowns.
• The White Wolf by Count Beledal, free if you swing by his exhibit after Big Game Hunter.
• Your tourney shield from The Warble of a Smitten Knight, engraved with whichever name you entered under.
• An ancient elven shield from Extreme Cosplay.
• The Painting of Hierarch Hemmelfart, of all things - that's actually a reward on A Poet Under Pressure, all the way back in the base game.

Hearts of Stone players get a bonus trick. Buy "Starry Night Over the Pontar" at the Open Sesame! auction, hang it at Corvo Bianco first, and you can still sell it to the collector for 500 crowns to finish that errand. The game happily lets the painting exist in both places.

The guest room payoff

Build the guest room, finish the DLC, and someone turns up on your doorstep in the Be It Ever So Humble... epilogue. Who shows depends on your base-game saves: Yennefer or Triss if you romanced one of them, Ciri if she survived and you stayed single, Dandelion otherwise. It's a short, quiet scene, and honestly the reason the guest room earns its 1,000 crowns. Two catches: the main game's story has to be finished first, and you have to pass back through Toussaint after the DLC wraps to trigger it.

A staff of one

Cure the spotted wight during La Cage au Fou instead of killing it, and Marlene de Trastamara comes home with you as the estate's cook. Her follow-up, The Hunger Game, is a short one about her appetite, and it hands over the Gold Stick of Joy for the trophy stand. Sparing her also counts as the compassion virtue, so curing her is a three-fer.

Missable Content Before Finishing

The good news first

Finishing the DLC doesn't close the duchy. Side quests, contracts, scavenger hunts, grandmaster diagrams - all of it stays available after the credits, and the estate keeps taking renovations forever. The real lockouts are choices made inside the main story, not the ending itself. So relax, mostly.

The fork at The Night of Long Fangs

Midway through the story, Beauclair gets attacked and Regis lays out two ways to reach Dettlaff: track down Syanna inside the Land of a Thousand Fables, or go over the Unseen Elder's head. You can sample both leads first - Damien's route, plus Orianna's, which slips in a bonus detour called Blood Simple - before Regis forces the final call. Nothing is locked until that conversation.

Then pick carefully. Only the Syanna route runs Beyond Hill and Dale..., the fairy-tale storyline with magic beans, a beanstalk, and a giant's castle in the clouds. It's some of the best content the DLC has. The Unseen Elder path skips all of it, and the wiki is blunt about the price: go that way, and nothing you do afterward can save both sisters. That's the hard lockout in Blood and Wine.

The 500-crown ribbon

Inside the fairy tale, the Little Flint Girl sells Syanna's magic ribbon for 500 crowns, or you can win it off her at gwent. Buy it. Without the ribbon, Dettlaff kills Syanna during Tesham Mutna, and the good ending dies with her. The ribbon also counts as your generosity virtue, so it's pulling double duty for the price of a night's inn stay.

The good-ending checklist

Saving both sisters takes five things:

1. Take the Syanna route and finish Beyond Hill and Dale...
2. Read the first two entries in the governess' journal you find there.
3. Hear Syanna's whole story while hunting the magic beans with her.
4. After the Dettlaff fight, investigate the fifth victim. The bootblack by the market points you to a shelter, and a beggar's letter names the intended target.
5. In the tower with Syanna afterward, answer "Cause she turned her back on you, forgot about you," and then "Ever thought to forgive her?"

Miss any one of those and the ceremony ends with a crossbow bolt and two funerals. Grim, but that's the deal.

The virtue ledger

There Can Be Only One tracks five virtues without ever telling you, and a few of the easy proofs are painfully simple to fumble:

• Sparing the shaelmaar in the opening arena fight (compassion).
• Guessing Milton's hideout correctly in The Beast of Toussaint (wisdom).
• Winning the tourney in The Warble of a Smitten Knight (valor).
• Handing the shoeshine in Where Children Toil, Toys Waste Away a flat 500 crowns - no haggling, no Axii (generosity).
• Tipping the letter boy 5 crowns at the start of Turn and Face the Strange (generosity).
• Treating Roderick's wound during Capture the Castle (compassion).

The saving grace is that proofs earned before you ever visit the lake still count, so a mostly-full ledger can be patched up late. The one that can't be patched is the shaelmaar - kill it in the arena and that proof is gone for the playthrough.

Small traps worth knowing

• The gwent tournament, To Everything - Turn, Turn, Tournament! (level 38), is run by Martin Monnier at The Pheasantry, and he makes you play Skellige. Before your deck is strong enough to register, go beat the innkeep there. Once you can enter, the tavern closes for the tournament and you lose your shot at her Draig Bon-Dhu card until it's over. Winning the whole event gets you the Victor's Cup for the trophy stand.
• In the Wine Wars chain, do Wine Wars: The Deus in the Machina before turning in Vermentino and Coronata. Expose the sabotage first and Liam and Matilda end their feud properly, which unlocks a return visit three days later where you name their new wine. Pick the Butcher of Blaviken label - it regenerates health the fastest.
• The Perks of Being a Jailbird only happens if Geralt gets thrown into prison at the end of Tesham Mutna, which rules out the good ending. So it's the prison poster for your wall or living sisters. Your call, but the sisters are better company.

And if that 14,000-crown renovation bill still stings after all the shopping, remember the hanse bases: their goons respawn until the boss falls, and every dropped sword is 100-200 crowns walking out the door with you.