In the car headed for Lodi, Warren sat in the passenger seat with his arms crossed, staring blankly out the window before suddenly speaking up.
“Master, have you thought of a name for the wine you’re releasing this time?”
“Which wine?”
“Hm? Ah, so there’s more than one. I meant the blending wine.”
There were two wines to be newly released this year. One was a Cabernet Sauvignon–centered blending wine, and the other was a single-vineyard Pinot Noir from Grendel Hill Farm in the Russian River Valley.
The single-vineyard wine had already undergone the fermentation I wanted and was aging in oak, so there was nothing for Warren to touch. That was why he hadn’t even tasted it yet, saying he would wait and experience the emotion of it at its absolute peak.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the road as I drove, I shook my head.
“Not yet. There’s no special reason. It’s just that no name has come to me yet that made me think, this is it. I was going to think about it when applying for the label before bottling, but...”
Warren’s eyes immediately widened.
“Oh dear, oh dear... Half of a wine’s identity is its name. Especially with cult wine, you have to raise expectations before people even taste it. You know that, don’t you? A single name can raise the price by twenty percent.”
Of course I knew that. But names weren’t something that necessarily turned out well just because you thought about them for a long time, and I had figured a good one might come to me naturally.
“I do know that, but... did you happen to have something in mind?”
Since he had brought up the subject, I naturally assumed there was something he wanted to say. Sure enough, with a meaningful smile, he leaned forward and traced words in the air with his finger as he spoke.
“So I thought of a few. Looking at your style, something too classical wouldn’t suit you... but something too flashy wouldn’t fit either...”
“So what are they?”
When he kept beating around the bush, I let out a small laugh. Seeing how much he was trying to build anticipation, it almost seemed like he needed someone to talk to.
“The first is Astra Vale. It means a valley where the stars fall. It combines astrum, meaning star, and vale, meaning valley. I tried to capture the feeling that you’re creating a new world starting from the soil.”
“That’s very poetic. It’s nice.”
“Heh heh, is it? Another one I came up with is Prime Meridian. It means something like a new standard. Cult wines need that kind of boldness, you know?”
“That’s good too.”
“Right? I became certain after seeing Aeschylon. When it comes to wine, you have such pride that you wouldn’t hesitate even with a somewhat aggressive name. And I thought of one more. How about Nocturne Cellars? Night, stillness, condensation... Your wine builds delicate layers, so I thought that image might suit it well.”
I’d wondered what he had been thinking about throughout the drive, and it seemed he had been immersed in naming wines.
“They’re all good names. Did you name all your own wines yourself, sir?”
“Some I named myself, and many I didn’t. When I was young, they were all my ideas, but after younger people came into the winery, I often used their ideas. If I did everything myself, it would hurt the staff’s morale, so I had to consider things like that too.”
“Ah... I suppose so. The staff would feel more attached to the winery and work harder if wines they blended and named themselves were released.”
“When a winery grows, those are the things that make your head hurt. To be honest, I’m hopeless at that sort of thing.”
I looked at him in puzzlement.
“Really? You talk a lot, and... I wouldn’t have thought you had trouble getting along with people.”
He snorted.
“Hmph! Do you think I do that with just anyone?”
“Oh, you don’t?”
Warren, wearing an expression of disbelief, waved his hand and said calmly,
“I’m not someone who deals with just anyone.”
“Haha, all right.”
“Do you know how many people come looking for me just to try and say a word to me? If I treat them even a little kindly, they act close to me and try to take something from me. Truthfully, it’s not that I begrudge sharing the knowledge I have. I have no intention of keeping it locked away either. If they can understand it, then what’s the problem? But even among my staff, there were few who properly understood what I was saying. It was so frustrating... Do you know what’s funny about it?”
“What?”
“When I teach them, you see, they nod along in front of me and pretend they understood perfectly, but when I watch what they actually do, nothing really changes.”
“Ah...”
I understood what Warren meant. Farming required a great deal of knowledge, but what mattered was the diligence to make use of that knowledge.
At its core, farming was about nurturing something, so it was extremely sensitive and required a great many hands. But that didn’t mean it showed tremendous results in a short period of time.
“With my staff, I can scold them if I have to, but among people who weren’t my employees, some even got angry with me afterward.”
“What? Why?”
“They said I’d taught them wrong. They said I didn’t tell them the truly important things and only taught them unimportant details, which was why their wine didn’t turn out properly. When I heard that, I made up my mind. I would no longer teach wine techniques.”
“Haha... I can picture exactly what happened.”
“Some people, you see, always look for the reason they failed in someone else. The reason I speak so freely with you about this and that comes down to one thing, in a way.”
“What is it?”
“You have a proper center. You aren’t swayed by my authority, and you have your own standards firmly in place. That’s not easy at your age... Usually, whenever I’m present, I’ve only seen people leave every choice to me and lean on me, but you never do that at all, so I can speak about anything with ease. To be honest, you don’t seem all that covetous of my knowledge either.”
In other words, no matter what he said, I would decide for myself, so he felt no burden in speaking.
“I’m grateful that you think so highly of me. And it’s not so much that I don’t covet knowledge as that I have my own philosophy...”
“That’s exactly what I mean. No matter how much of that someone has, they usually glare at me as if there must be at least one thing they can get out of me... Well, that was useless talk. Anyway, is there one among these three names that you like?”
“They’re all good, so let’s choose from among them.”
He seemed pleased that I would choose one of the three, and a deep smile settled on his lips.
“Is that so? Good, then let’s think it over slowly. Ah, and what about that Pinot Noir? You haven’t decided on a name for that either, have you?”
“I’ve thought of about two for that...”
“Oh, really?”
“One is G.HILL PL-1. I thought of it simply, and I deliberately made it a bit modern.”
Warren nodded.
“That’s not bad either. Simple and stylish. Is that the only one?”
“Mm... I thought of one more. Quiet Hill.”
“Hm? Quiet Hill? Oho, does it express delicacy and stillness? It also seems to express the calm layers unique to Pinot Noir.”
“That too, and it’s also a name that came to me after thinking about the story behind that place.”
Warren, wondering what I meant, soon remembered Grendel Hill Farm and let out a small exclamation.
“Ahh... Does it express the state of mind of the owner of Grendel Hill Farm?”
“That’s right.”
“Remarkable. It could have been something to feel terribly wronged over, yet he chose quiet silence and focused only on the grapes. It has meaning. It does.”
Warren, shaking his head again and again, continued talking about wine for quite some time afterward. Only after driving another thirty minutes or so were we able to arrive at the Lodi plains.
Perhaps this place, where the young branches of second-year pear trees filled the eyes in bewildering profusion, felt unfamiliar to him; Warren kept looking around with curiosity brimming in his eyes.
Just then, a voice full of joy came from far away.
“Brian! You’re here?”
Chloe, with a scarf wrapped over her head and boots on her feet, came running over. Then she noticed Warren standing behind me and looked at him in puzzlement.
“Oh? Hello.”
Chloe, who had already seen Warren several times when she’d come to the farm before, greeted him. At the look in her eyes that seemed to ask why he was here, Warren accepted her greeting and said,
“Haha, this friend said he was going to a pear farm, so I tagged along. I’ve become interested in farming methods other than grape cultivation, you see.”
“Ah, I see. Welcome.”
After saying that, Chloe took my arm and said,
“I was actually going to tell you yesterday, but a few problems have come up in some places. I’ll tell you as we go.”
“Okay.”
Warren looked at Chloe, who was walking glued to my side, with a strange smile, and when our eyes met, he quietly turned his gaze away.
Shaking my head, I first walked into the farm.
“Did you check the flower bud differentiation?”
“I tried to do it the way you told me over the phone, but... I couldn’t really understand from hearing it over the phone.”
“When saplings enter their second year, they’re at a truly important stage. If you don’t get it right now, the third-year yield could end up being zero, so you have to check it extremely carefully.”
As I walked, I ran my palm up along one tree. Then I lifted the tip of a new shoot and said,
“Mm... This is good. When the tip of a new shoot has grown about eight to twelve centimeters like this, it’s a normal sign of differentiation. But the internode spacing has begun to shorten a little, right?”
Chloe came closer and turned the new shoot over to examine it.
“Oh? You’re right. At first I thought it was just kind of skinny and dried out.”
“This is the signal that the flower buds are being prepared. And... here.”
I pointed with my finger to a flower bud that was beginning to swell plumply.
“This will become next year’s flower bud. If differentiation goes well over the next two months, next year’s fruit set will stabilize at over seventy percent.”
Warren, who had been listening from behind, cut in.
“Wait, do you look at pear trees this precisely? It’s more complicated than grapes...?”
Without turning around, I said calmly,
“Even if the crop is different, the principle is similar. You read the signal that it’s transitioning into reproductive growth.”
“Oho, is that so?”
But as I looked around the farm, my brow furrowed.
“But it looks like you haven’t cut all the water sprouts—the uselessly overgrown new shoots?”
“Hm? Is this not enough? Do I need to cut more? Lately, new shoots have been coming up like crazy, so I cleaned up quite a lot with the workers.”
Chloe stiffened slightly, as if realizing she might have made a mistake. Since it was her first pear farm, it was only natural she wouldn’t know the standard for what was appropriate. So I traced the middle and lower section of the tree with my hand and said,
“Yeah. You need to clear it up to about here. If there’s a bit too much nitrogen or irrigation, these come up like this in huge numbers, but if you don’t clean them up properly, you’ll get only leaf buds instead of flower buds. You need to clean up more from here.”
“Got it.”
“Still, looking at this, irrigation wasn’t lacking.”
“You said a lack of irrigation would lead to fewer flower buds, so I paid attention to it, but I guess I overdid it instead.”
“That’s why farming isn’t easy. To some extent, you have to develop a feel for it...”
Even if I had been Chloe, I would likely have fumbled a little when deciding the initial irrigation amount. How much was appropriate had to be determined by trying it firsthand and adjusting while observing the condition of the trees.
“I think I’m starting to get a sense for it now.”
Seeing Chloe speak confidently, I found myself stroking her head without realizing it. Passing by Chloe, who smiled bashfully, I met Warren’s strangely odd gaze and turned away again as I spoke.
“For branches that have too much vigor, set the angle properly... Hm? What’s this? The leaves here are yellow?”
When I saw the leaves on one tree and approached, Chloe said with a gloomy face,
“This is actually what I wanted to tell you. Starting a few days ago, I began seeing leaves here and there that had faded in color like this. I wondered if it was just one tree and thought maybe I’d watered it too little, but then I saw it in other places too...”
“You should have told me sooner.”
“I was going to tell you yesterday...”
Seeing Chloe’s face suddenly turn red, I cleared my throat.
“Ahem... That can happen. It’s not too late yet.”
At that moment, Warren, who had been watching from behind with a look of distaste, slipped into the conversation.
“Why is that happening? It looks quite serious.”
Perhaps he had noticed that my expression was dark despite my casual tone, because Warren pointed it out exactly. Chloe’s face immediately stiffened, so I hurriedly said,
“It’s not extremely serious. Mm... If we act quickly, it can be fixed.”
“Why did it happen?”
I touched the yellow leaf, then gave a bitter smile.
“It looks like the muddy water from that farm back then has caused trouble all the way here.”