The front yard of Redwood Winery had been buzzing with life since early morning, as heated with energy as the blazing California sun. The once quiet, peaceful hill had now been transformed into a vast outdoor banquet hall.
On barbecue grills enough to fill two large trucks—where Dad had gotten them from, I had no idea—thick briskets and ribs cooked away, sending up the scent of smoke, while Mom and the winery staff lined up Redwood’s signatures, Sylphid and Echelon, and yesterday’s glory, Astra Veil, on tables covered in white linen.
Mom said Astra Veil was far too expensive and suggested we only put out three bottles, but Dad insisted that since today’s glory belonged to Astra Veil, we couldn’t leave out the star of the show, and set out an entire case.
Of course, Mom and I both knew Dad was only doing it because he wanted to use this opportunity to drink as much Astra Veil as he liked, but it was a happy day, so we quietly let it slide.
“Brian! You bastard!”
The one who got out of the pickup truck that came tearing in from afar, kicking up dust, was Armando. Before he even shut the door, he ran over and hugged me hard enough to crush me. His clothes, fresh from Alexander Valley, carried the pleasant smell of soil.
“My God, Best of Show! That means those picky judges from the San Francisco Chronicle threw themselves at your feet. This is insane!”
Strangely enough, Armando’s congratulations felt the best.
“Don’t overdo it, Armando. Did you get a girlfriend while I wasn’t looking?”
“Don’t even get me started. So many women have been clinging to me that I’m still sorting them out.”
“......”
“You don’t believe me, do you? I’m serious.”
Then he smoothly turned aside. A little ways behind him stood a cute Asian woman in a blue dress, looking awkward. And on top of that, she looked about the age of a freshman.
I immediately leaned toward Armando and spoke in a low voice.
“What’s this? She’s a student at our school?”
“Yep. A freshman who enrolled this year.”
Seeing Armando’s lips rise almost to the sky, I gave him a look of disbelief, then asked quietly again.
“Where’s she from?”
“She’s Vietnamese American. Pretty, right?”
To be honest, she was cute enough to make me annoyed at the thought that she was Armando’s girlfriend.
“She is pretty... but can you communicate?”
“Her English is good. She said it’s been five years since she immigrated.”
“While I was working myself to death, you were filming a youth romance.”
“What are you talking about? You’re living all blissfully with Chloe, aren’t you? Anyway, her real name is... hard, even for me, and her American name is Angela. Angela, come here. This is the friend I’m proudest of. Brian.”
Angela approached shyly and gave me a small wave. I smiled awkwardly, waved back, and pointed toward where the party was being held.
“Have fun while you’re here.”
“Thank you.”
Angela hooked her arm neatly around Armando’s and started walking ahead. Armando followed after her, then looked back and grinned. For some reason, it was a sight I couldn’t stand, so I turned my head—only for a smile to spread across my face before I knew it at the sight of someone approaching in the distance.
Chloe, wearing a yellow dress, was walking toward me under the Napa sunlight. Paying no mind to the gazes of others, she threw her arms around me and left a deep kiss on my cheek.
“Congratulations, Brian. You have no idea how loudly I screamed when I saw the news yesterday. The workers at our pear farm thought there’d been an earthquake in Napa.”
Her eyes brimmed with pride in me. I think I had to take back what I’d said about Armando’s congratulations feeling the best. I lightly wrapped my arms around her impossibly slender waist.
“Thank you. It’s all thanks to you.”
As if she couldn’t hold back, she kissed me, and for a moment, we shared a brief bit of love in the middle of the vineyard before finishing up because Frederick and Brandon were coming up behind her.
“That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Tch, just have the wedding already...”
Frederick was frowning, while Amelia looked delighted, as though she were watching a romantic scene, and Brandon had turned his head as if he couldn’t bear the sickening sight.
“Hahaha... Please, head on up.”
After Chloe’s family went up, Christopher arrived at the party. Spreading both arms, he spoke with an excited expression.
“Brian, your market value is rising faster than land prices in Napa. Even at this very moment, hedge fund managers in New York are harassing their secretaries trying to get a bottle of Astra Veil. Do you know whose call I took on the way here?”
“Whose...?”
“None other than Viktor Karloff. The man who ordered a whopping one hundred cases on the spot told me this: he’d never seen a wine investment succeed this much in such a short time.”
“Ah... I suppose so.”
When I saw Viktor pay more than five hundred thousand dollars on the spot, I’d thought he was a bold man, but in less than a month, on paper, it was as good as if he had made more than twice his money back.
A person of his stature probably wouldn’t resell what he had bought, but imagining him stockpiling a large quantity of wine that would be hard to obtain and then showing off the bottles one by one, I could roughly guess how delighted he must be.
“The people who attended that day and placed large orders are probably losing their minds with happiness as well. They’re all famous tycoons, so they won’t put the wine they took to auction. Controlling the supply shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Yes, I’ll trust you with it. Please go on up.”
Aside from Christopher, owners of nearby wineries and students from UC Davis also attended. Moreover, since Warren, a symbolic figure of Napa Valley, was here as well, quite a few famous people came too. More than anything else, the simple fact that they could taste Redwood’s wines to their hearts’ content was reason enough to attend today’s party.
The party reached its peak in an instant. Champagne foam burst into the air from the bottle Dad opened, and Redwood’s staff and nearby farmers clinked glasses and cheered.
Just as the atmosphere of the party was reaching its height, Jacob approached, his face flushed from wine. Instead of the work apron he usually wore, he had on a rather fine jacket, but the large leather bag in his hand looked as precious as a chest hiding treasure.
“There’s something I want to show you.”
“Hm?”
“The prototype of the Ruby Quartz that the elder created is ready.”
At Jacob’s loud voice, everyone looked at him at once. And then came the bottle taken out of the large leather bag.
An exclamation burst from someone’s mouth. What had been placed on the table was not the rough liquor bottle we were used to seeing. The finely crafted crystal decanter caught the fierce California sunlight and scattered tens of thousands of shards of light in every direction.
But what seized people’s eyes even more powerfully was the strange liquid sloshing inside the bottle. It wasn’t the cloudy amber of ordinary brandy. The transparent yet unfathomably deep ruby-brown created by Warren’s low-temperature pigment extraction technology held the light within it.
“As you requested, we kept the label design as restrained as possible. Your name itself is the brand, after all.”
The label was a pitch-black matte black. On the rough-textured paper, only the sharp typography printed in gold foil asserted its presence.
[RUBY QUARTZ]
Vacuum Distilled Cherry Brandy
And below that, in the most important position, Warren Winiarski’s elegant handwritten signature was engraved together with a vivid golden seal.
[Crafted by Warren Winiarski]
Warren set down his cane and slowly reached out. The fingertips of the old soldier who had spent his entire life making wine smoothly traced the crystal bottle that had given form to his trump card.
“Beautiful. It’s another color and atmosphere that wine can’t produce.”
At Warren’s praise, Jacob opened the cap with a flushed face. With a polite pop, the high-proof alcohol, over forty percent, evaporated into the air and poured out the fragrance that had been suppressed within.
In that instant, the air of the party changed. The aroma of freshly harvested cherry flesh, the nuance of bitter seeds, and bright esters unobscured by the smoky scent of oak barrels came surging in like waves. Christopher, who was standing nearby, sniffed the air and looked astonished.
“This is brandy? How can it have such depth of aroma...?”
“It’s thanks to Elder Warren’s design.”
When I chimed in from beside him, Warren lifted the glass Jacob had poured, smelled it, and took a sip. His eyes gently closed. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the master’s evaluation.
But then,
“Not bad.”
At the expression, far too plain, everyone tilted their heads. But Frederick, who couldn’t restrain himself when it came to alcohol, stepped forward first and poured the liquor into an empty glass. As if afraid someone might take it from him, he snatched up the glass, tossed it down his throat, and opened his eyes wide.
“Wow! Hahaha! This... this is astonishing. Jacob, you’re going to sell this at your distillery?”
“Yes.”
“Insane. One more glass...”
But before Frederick could continue, the bottle was already in my father’s hands. And in an instant, people targeting that bottle swarmed in.
Frederick, deciding he was already too late, approached Jacob and said,
“How much can you set aside for me?”
“Pardon?”
“The Ruby Quartz.”
When Frederick bluntly asked him to set aside stock, Jacob was momentarily flustered, but since it was none other than Chloe’s father, he couldn’t refuse. To him, who had lost his own father, a friend’s father was like a father as well.
“I’ll set aside one case for you.”
“How many bottles is that?”
“It’s a premium brandy, so we decided on six bottles per case.”
“Is that so? How much?”
“......”
“Don’t you dare think of not taking money. You may be Chloe’s friend, but you and I are strictly fellow businessmen.”
“... All right. It’s 3,600 dollars.”
He had thought it wouldn’t matter even if it was expensive, but Frederick was slightly surprised that it was 600 dollars per bottle. Not because he felt the price was expensive to pay for liquor, but because, as a businessman, he could predict just how much money Jacob would make.
“I see... For liquor of this caliber, 600 dollars isn’t a waste. Then, since you’re already setting some aside, perhaps three cases—”
“I’ll take five cases.”
Dad cut in swiftly once again. The liquid of Ruby Quartz was sloshing in the glass in his hand, so he had clearly already taken a sip.
I shook my head and turned away. The two people who would be in the best mood today had gotten fired up, so no one would be able to stop them.
“Brian! This is seriously amazing!”
Chloe, too, was half closing her eyes as she drank Astra Veil. Wine was basically not low in alcohol, so if you kept sipping because it tasted good, it was bound to hit you all at once.
Thinking something might happen if she drank any more, I brought her to the winery office and laid her down on the sofa.
“I want to drink more...”
“Rest a little. The party’s long, so you can enjoy it again later.”
After quietly letting Chloe rest and coming out, I found Warren waiting for me. Behind him came the sounds of people laughing and Dad’s hearty toast. Warren came up beside me, tapping the floor with his cane.
“It has been a long time since I’ve been at such a pleasant party. There’s no need to read anyone’s expression, and none of those invisible battles of nerves. Experiencing a party where people are simply celebrating and enjoying themselves purely for once makes me feel good as well.”
“I see.”
He stared at my face and asked,
“Is something troubling you? You look like you have a lot on your mind.”
“Well, many things.”
“Is it because of Harlan?”
“No. What could those people do? All the important knowledge is in my head. More than that, I keep thinking that I want to do something for Armando’s farm, which is still at the vinegar stage.”
“Oh... Your heart for your friend is quite remarkable. Even if you receive a portion of the profits, that can’t be easy.”
“No matter how close friends are, if the gap between them grows too big, they drift apart. I don’t want that. And Armando is a hardworking guy, so he’ll become a good winemaker. I guess I want to make a wine that suits him. Something like that.”
“...... A wine that suits the winemaker... That is not an easy problem. But it does sound interesting. To do that, you’ll have to know the characteristics of that friend’s vineyard well, and you’ll have to find a blend that matches him too. It’s no different from creating an entirely new winery, but strangely, when you say you’ll do it, it doesn’t seem all that difficult.”
“For now, it’s just a thought. First, I have to prepare for the winter that’s right in front of us.”
Now, every wine we had prepared had been released. It had been so busy and hectic, but more than that, my heart was filled with pride.