Oh man this is frustrating. Finally am playing a version with basically no bugs, and what happens? My awful awful memory has cost me at least one quest, probably two.

I had the exquisite bottle of wine. Got the book from Penumbra, and was about to get the the talking stick branch when I looked.... and no more exquisite bottle of wine. Apparently I had forgotten it's importance and sold it in one of my trips to sell loot. I went back to every merchant in the game.... none had an exquisite bottle of wine for sale. Quest gone.

Now, I just got the amulet that is apparently one of the three holy weapons. So, I thought, that was all. But no, I looked in my inventory, and though i still had the dagger..... no sword. Now it's possible my memory is wrong in that I didn't even get the sword yet, but man I thought I had. And if I had, it too is gone because I checked every merchant again and none have the sword.

My relationship with this game is doomed I think. lol.

Corrina will accept a different bottle of wine; just head to the wine merchant in Verdistis (though that still leave the quest entry for retrieving the exquisite wine).

You can return to Iona's dungeon (map) to check if you got the sword yet, or not.

I won't mention the Lost Items procedure...

Well, you're not going to believe this, but I found it. And you know where? In the Ducal Inn in that guys room sitting on the floor.

I got the bottle of wine BEFORE Alwhateverhhisnameis was arrested for burning the cart. He asked me to burn the cart, I said no, he said no bottle of wine then. But, when I clicked on the trade button while talking to him, the bottle of wine was there, and I simply purchased it. Then apparently sold it somewhere or dropped it or something but when I went back into his now empty room at the Ducal Inn, there on the floor sat an Exquisite Bottle of Wine.

This also worked by the way with the magical lockpicks. I completed the quest, and gave Finnigan his lockpicks, then simply clicked on the trade button, and the top item he had for sale was his magical lockpicks (very cheap too) and voila, finish the quest AND keep the lockpicks.

Don't know why the bottle of wine showed back up there, but damned if it didn't.

ADDED IN EDIT: You know I'm back to level 35, gathering the Council of Seven, and now, after all the hours of playing with the Steam and GoG and now CD versions, I've got a scary total. I can't even imagine the number of hours I've put in from getting well past 20 at least 5 times and starting over. But I fear my interest is waning now (understandable given the hours in) and damn if I might not finish it now because of that.

I swear to all the Gods it must be pre-ordained that I''m never to finish this thing. WHen I played it the first time many, many years ago I got all the way to the end (I'm pretty sure it was the end) where you had this area where there were like 4 castles (IIRC) and you had to beat a boss at each castle and I beat two of them but couldn't beat the other two or something IIRC. Anyway, never did beat the thing. Then picked it up again and gave it this try.

For any that have read this far, I've gotta say it will still, even if I don't finish it, go down as one of my all time favorite games. I would follow someone else's advice that I saw here and urge others interested to steer clear of the digital versions and try to find a disk version on ebay or amazon or something and then patch it up to 1.034. Not only does it remove all/most of the bugs, the MUSIC selection with the CD version is AMAZING and just adds to the experience.

I would like to write a review but I've never done that before so if anyone reads this consider this the review. I would give the GOG and Steam versions 3 1/2 stars for being great but buggy and missing music and I would give the CD version 4 1/2 only because I'm very stingent on giving anything a perfect score. And the fact is the CD version could've done some things better too. But this is as good a game as I've ever played, I would highly and enthusiastically recommend it to others. Great job Larian, you guys hit it out of the park with this one.

When Anthrabert gets arrested, the game places the exquisite bottle of wine in his room in the Ducal inn. Apparently that happens even if you buy the wine first.
The same thing happens to the magic lockpicks, if you steal them before getting the quest to do so, they can be put back when you get the quest.

The ability to buy back the lockpicks after completing the quest was added in the 1.33/1.34 disk version patches, and is not possible in the download version.

If you complete the Blessing Ceremony, when you get to the wastelands most of that area can be skipped. You could always take a break and continue gathering the council later (just check your quest and/or conversation log when you feel like returning).

The final castle complex is brutally dull; I certainly wouldn't blame you if you didn't bother to finish it.