Columbia Valley in Washington State, located a full 1,180 kilometers north of Napa Valley, sits near the border between Canada and the United States. Since it was about 150 kilometers from Seattle, the largest city in the northwestern United States, getting there from Napa by car was far too much of a journey; taking a plane was the sensible choice. Driving would mean more than thirteen hours behind the wheel.
Considering that the straight-line distance from Seoul to Busan is a little over 320 kilometers, it was easy to imagine just how far it was.
If I brought in Petit Verdot from somewhere outside California, I wouldn’t be able to write “California-grown” on the label, but I didn’t care about that at all. It was a cult wine, and if I could raise the quality at a reasonable price, it didn’t matter where the grapes came from.
And so we arrived at Sacramento International Airport to catch an early-morning flight… and when I saw Warren getting out of the back seat of a Rolls-Royce, I said,
“Isn’t that… a bit too incongruous?”
“At my age, if I don’t ride in a good car, my back and hips start aching. If you’ve got money, you ought to ride in something like that.”
“Ah, yes…”
The flight was, of course, business class, and as soon as Warren sat down, he asked naturally,
“What wines do you have?”
“We have a small quantity of 2004 California Cabernet Sauvignon, 2005 Washington Merlot, and for sparkling, Korbel Brut. It’s a short route, so there isn’t much variety.”
“A glass of the Washington Merlot, please. Today is a day for feeling Washington. What will our master have?”
I looked at him with no small amount of incomprehension and said,
“We’re arriving soon. You’re going to drink wine?”
“Wine enjoyed in the sky is different. Have one.”
Since Warren had ordered, it felt awkward to just sit there.
“I’ll have the same.”
“Certainly.”
When the flight attendant moved away, Warren said,
“You’re looking at me as if to ask why I’d drink cheap wine.”
“To be honest, I am curious. I don’t think you’d order wine just because you’re in business class and want to get your money’s worth.”
“Hahaha! Still, thank you for thinking well of me. As you said, on short domestic routes like this, the wines they carry around on the cart are often bulk-purchased OEM products from large companies, and many are airline-exclusive labels without any specific winery shown. Even so, I always order wine. There’s a tiny bit of mood-setting involved, but more than anything, I don’t often get the chance to drink inexpensive wine otherwise.”
“You mean you deliberately drink it because it’s cheap?”
“That’s right. Wine isn’t something with a fixed answer like mathematics. That’s why I live each time as if I’m exploring some imaginary sea. Aroma, structure, finish… I’m imagining what produces the most outstanding sensation when combined in what way. When I do that, I start to feel as if my feet are floating in the air.”
“You lose your sense of reality.”
“Exactly. At some point, I sometimes find myself thinking, ‘What am I even making?’ At times like that, drinking a daily wine under thirty dollars can clear the air. ‘Ah, people buy this for thirty dollars,’ I think. Then my feet touch the ground again, and I organize the thoughts that had gone too far ahead.”
Just then, the flight attendant brought the wine. Warren accepted it with a smile and took a light sip.
I also took a sip, and a sweet red-fruit aroma rose up, while a faint herbal note brushed past.
“Mm? This is better than I expected. It doesn’t have that spreading sweetness particular to Merlot, and the finish is short, so it actually seems perfect for drinking on a plane.”
“Isn’t it? Look at that. This is the joy of life. Finding unexpected pleasure in an unexpected place.”
“I see.”
Feeling there was much to learn, I nodded, then asked,
“How did you come to know the place we’re going to now?”
“That? It must have been… 1998. There was an international seminar called the Vinorum Symposium held near Florence, hosted by Antinori, and winemakers from all over Europe gathered there.”
He seemed amused to be recalling old memories, and a broad smile hung at the corners of his mouth.
“That day, there was a tasting under the theme of ‘Diversification of New World Wines’… but to be honest, the entire lineup was predictable. Napa, Sonoma, Chile, Argentina… Then an Italian professor came up to me and very discreetly recommended a wine. But as it turned out, it was an American wine. I thought I knew American wines—not all of them, but all the decent ones—and then I encountered a wine I’d never imagined.”
“That was the Washington wine we’re going to now?”
“That’s right. When I saw ‘Columbia Valley, Washington’ written on the label, I wondered if I was seeing it correctly. And the friend who recommended the wine to me had quite a picky palate. On top of that, Petit Verdot, which is treated as a hidden supporting actor in Bordeaux blends, as a single varietal? And from Washington? Everything was hard to believe.”
When I looked at him, Warren was not only good at telling stories, but he was also quite talkative. If his children had been deeply interested in grapes and wine, he would probably have been very happy. How much must he have wanted to say?
Conversely, it also seemed as if he had many things he wanted to say but couldn’t, and was pouring them out here instead.
“Oh… and then?”
“I immediately found the wine he recommended and tried it. The Petit Verdot I drank that day was… rather shocking.”
“In what way?”
When I asked, Warren lowered his voice, eyes gleaming.
“Petit Verdot usually ripens late, and it’s dark and firm. Even on Bordeaux’s Left Bank, it’s hard to ripen fully, so in cool years, it often ends up with green notes. But there was none of that in that glass. Black plum, violet, plum blossom, and an acidity that wasn’t heavy at all… Above all, the tannins weren’t rough; they were smooth like oil. I had almost never seen Petit Verdot’s knife-edged tannins refined like that. Do you know about Bordeaux’s Left Bank and Right Bank?”
“I do. The place where the Garonne River and Dordogne River meet becomes the Gironde estuary, and based on that, the west side is called the Left Bank and the east side the Right Bank.”
“And their characteristics?”
“The Left Bank is dominated by powerful, structured styles centered on Cabernet Sauvignon, while the Right Bank is known for softer, deeply flavored styles centered on Merlot and Cabernet Franc, isn’t it?”
Warren smiled in satisfaction.
“As expected, you don’t neglect your studies. Though since you’re not American, you might not know. In truth, it isn’t all that important either. In any case, after drinking that wine, I reflected on myself quite a bit. I realized that sometimes a supporting actor can become the lead. But since it’s a wine people either love or hate, it still hasn’t received much mainstream recognition, which is a pity.”
I had wondered how he knew of it, and it turned out there was quite an impressive story behind it.
“I see… Then have you met the winery owner as well?”
“Of course. Naturally. The friend we’re going to meet now is rather unique, too. No—if you think about it differently… it’s precisely because of that uniqueness that she was able to make a wine like this.”
“What part of her is like that?”
“First of all… she absolutely hates it when Petit Verdot is treated as a supporting actor in Bordeaux blends. Even in Bordeaux, that variety is treated as Cabernet Sauvignon’s shadow. It adds color, adds tannin, and supports the structure. But that friend denied that head-on from beginning to end. Needless to say, the French were horrified.”
He grinned, took a sip of wine, and continued. In that smile was a subtle pride, as if he were boasting about someone else’s child.
“She was someone with an unwavering philosophy about her own wine. As for the details, meet her yourself later and feel it.”
Hearing him describe her that way made me even more curious. After a flight of about two hours, we arrived at Tri-Cities Airport, got into the rental car we had prepared in advance, and drove for more than an hour until we reached our destination.
“Mr. Warren!”
Perhaps because we had notified her of our arrival in advance, a woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties was waiting at the winery entrance to welcome us. Tall and elegant, with bright curly hair, she had the sort of presence that lifted the mood of anyone who looked at her.
“It’s been a while.”
“I’m glad to see you looking healthy.”
“I’m still perfectly fine.”
“I saw the magazine. I thought it couldn’t possibly be true…”
She glanced once at me, who had followed behind, then said to Warren in a low voice,
“It was real?”
“It wasn’t a lie.”
“My goodness… You’re saying that young man really is like that?”
“You can’t tell by looking at him. There are things inside that head just as strange as what’s in yours.”
“Oh~ is that so?”
She looked at me with surprised eyes, then came over and held out her hand.
“I’m Miriam Cole.”
“I’m Brian Choi.”
“I don’t know how this old man introduced me, but I’m not that much of an eccentric.”
“He didn’t introduce you strangely. He told me an old story about how he was quite surprised when he first drank your wine, Ms. Miriam.”
She looked at Warren with unexpected surprise.
“That sounds quite normal.”
“When I first met you, I thought you were strange, but after meeting this fellow, you seem normal by comparison.”
As I wondered just how strange she must have been for him to say that, Warren looked at me and added,
“As it turns out, this friend wasn’t originally a farmer. Was it an applied mathematician?”
“Hoho, that’s right.”
“You were a mathematician?”
When I asked in surprise, she waved her hand as if it were nothing.
“That was a long time ago. Shall we go in?”
We followed her into the winery. As Warren walked behind her, he said,
“I was quite surprised when I met her, but as time passed and the 2000s began, data analysts with backgrounds in agriculture and engineering started entering the wine industry. Among UC Davis graduates as well, quite a few people came over from mathematics or engineering.”
Curious, I asked,
“Then what methods do you use in grape cultivation?”
Walking ahead, she turned back and smiled.
“It was a little different before, but for the past few years, I’ve been using GDD—Growing Degree Days.”
“Ah…”
“Do you know it?”
“Yes. It’s an index that expresses, as a number, the amount of heat accumulation that grapes actually used for growth over the course of a year.”
Grapes ripen a lot when the weather is hot, and barely ripen when it is cool. GDD could be called an index that mathematically quantifies that very point.
“There really is a reason Mr. Warren holds you in such high regard.”
She soon stood before dozens of oak barrels arranged in the aging room.
“I’m worried Mr. Warren may have praised me too much… but it shouldn’t be bad.”
It sounded modest, but her words were steeped in pride for her own wine. Her expression was the same. From her calm, composed gaze, I sensed a mentality that would not be greatly shaken even if she received harsh criticism.
The red wine poured into the glass through the barrel sampler brushed my nose with its rich aroma first. When I took a sip, it felt soft, and I thought I understood what Warren had meant when he said the tannins were not rough but smooth like oil.
“Wow!”
When I let out an exclamation, she burst into laughter.
“Is it all right?”
“I’ve honestly never felt this kind of Petit Verdot before.”
“Everyone only cares about famous things like Pinot Noir, so my wine gets less attention, but I don’t think the quality is lacking in the slightest.”
As expected, her pride was tremendous. But since she had such extraordinary pride, it was somehow difficult to say that I wanted to use it as one part of my blend.
But then,
“I heard the story from Mr. Warren. You’re making the ultimate Cabernet Sauvignon blend, aren’t you?”
“Pardon?”
I wondered why he had described it in such grand terms, but on the other hand, if it weren’t something on that level, it would have been strange for Warren to ask her for a favor.
“But I can’t give it to you cheaply.”
The fact that she was willing to give it to me at all was enough. Before she could say anything else, I answered quickly.
“Thank you. Then how much…?”
I thought it was a good thing I had saved my money instead of spending it. Because if I had my way, I wanted to take every oak barrel in this aging room with me.