Leaving Napa Valley behind, on the road toward Sonoma County. My feelings as I drove the BMW Z4 carrying not Chloe but a middle-aged man were somehow both hollow and absurd.
At least we were departing after washing him at the winery, so I was grateful simply that he didn’t smell. Truthfully, the body odor of white people is incomparably harsher than that of unwashed Koreans. On top of that, if he hadn’t washed for days? You could say your nose would go numb trapped in the same space.
When you farm, people of various races mix together to work; outdoor work is somewhat fine because the wind carries the smell away, but if you have to move inventory together inside a warehouse... the ventilation has to be very good.
Anyway, because of that environment, I had installed shower facilities at the winery for workers to wash, but when Daniel wanted to just leave, I threatened that we could only go together if he washed first, and after making him presentable again, we departed.
Daniel Grendel, sitting in the passenger seat, stared blankly at the scenery passing by outside the window. I glanced at his profile while driving, then looked forward and opened my mouth.
“I had heard you left for France. But to think you are the assistant winemaker at that famous Domaine Leroy... I couldn’t have imagined it.”
The Domaine Leroy where he worked was, among wine enthusiasts, a living legend of Burgundy and one of the wineries producing the most expensive and precious wines in the world; its owner, Lalou Bize-Leroy, was a figure called the Queen of Burgundy.
She owns the finest vineyards centered around the village of Vosne-Romanée in France’s Burgundy region, and because production is extremely low, the price per bottle runs from millions to tens of millions of won. It is evaluated as standing shoulder to shoulder only with Romanée-Conti (DRC), and in certain vintages it receives even higher evaluations.
Therefore, as the assistant winemaker of Domaine Leroy, he could be evaluated as someone already in the upper echelons of the wine industry.
But Daniel gave a self-deprecating smile and brushed back his now smooth-flowing hair.
“At first, I couldn’t imagine it either. When I was chased out of Harrington, I even contemplated just dying. A winemaker who ruined wine in this world... my career in Napa was as good as over. To top it off, the winery where I caused the accident was Harrington, a historic one in Sonoma, so that says it all. Everyone probably thought I ran away, but truthfully, I left to survive. There was no place for me in Napa.”
“I suppose so.”
“So I arrived in France... but France was hell in a different sense. Those stubborn old men in Burgundy would spit at any winemaker who spoke English. At the time, I couldn’t speak French, so naturally nothing was given to me but odd jobs.”
Daniel pulled a stick of gum from his pocket to moisten his dry lips and continued speaking.
“At first, I only pulled weeds in the fields. As for thermodynamics or molecular biology learned at UC Davis... you may or may not know, but France is very different from America here when it comes to grape growing and winemaking.”
“I know well. Scientific techniques are treated like superstition, aren’t they.”
At my words, he snorted and pointed at me.
“You know well? Just like those stubborn old men... Anyway, I couldn’t stand any ordinary winery. Then I thought, if I’m going to live like a slave, I might as well be a slave at the best winery. So I packed my bags and went straight to Domaine Leroy. By then my French was at least somewhat passable, so I wasn’t chased out, but for about the first three years I only sorted dirt. I didn’t even see Madame Lalou Bize-Leroy’s face.”
“Did you work for money?”
“At minimum wage at the time... I filled my belly with cheap food provided by the winery, but thinking back, it wasn’t much worse than American food, so I endured well.”
“Ah... American food is what it is.”
He looked at me with a bewildered expression for a moment as I disparaged American food, but soon continued again.
“After the first three years, I received an evaluation of being somewhat diligent, and they began teaching me little by little. But even though I graduated top of my class from UC Davis, it didn’t amount to a thing, and I had to relearn grape growing from the basics. Then one night, after everyone else had left work, I remained alone in the cellar checking and recording the state of thousands of barrels, and Madame Lalou found me sleeping on the floor hugging a barrel.”
“Oho.”
“From then on, Madame Lalou began teaching me about wine. I was recognized as a disciple, so to speak.”
It was an extremely interesting story.
“So that’s how you rose to assistant winemaker?”
“Don’t even mention it. This was merely the beginning. One autumn, after I had become one of Madame Lalou Leroy’s many disciples, temperatures soared during harvest. As you know, Madame Lalou abhors mechanical intervention. She forbade even placing a cooling device in the cellar, saying it wounds the soul of wine. But the fermentation tanks started exceeding 35 degrees. If left like that, the native yeasts would all burn to death and the wine would become vinegar. In that situation, the head winemaker was crying and praying? It was truly absurd...”
“So what did you do?”
“I couldn’t stand watching that superstitious prayer, so in the middle of the night I secretly dug up the cellar floor. There was a cold underground water vein there. I gathered discarded copper pipes from the farm and coiled them around the tank exteriors. I improvised a circulation system that cooled the heat using only the gravity from the water level difference and the chill of the groundwater.”
I exclaimed in admiration. Because it was a most appropriate improvisation in such a desperate situation.
“That’s the UC Davis spirit! The spirit of never giving up!”
“Right, that’s the UC Davis spirit! Anyway, if caught by Madame Lalou Leroy, it was a gamble that would cost me my head that very day. The expression on her face when she came down to the cellar in the morning and saw the copper coils wrapped around every tank was really... something I’ll never forget. She stood silently for a long while, then pressed her hand against the cooled tank with a sharp slap. How do you think my heart was then? Thump-thump... it was no joke. And that old woman looked at me and said exactly one thing. That sometimes the tricks of Americans are useful too. Do you know what I thought then?”
A certain indescribable madness gleamed in his eyes.
“What was it?”
“...That these people are still living in a dream. I acknowledge that Domaine Leroy is a world-class winery... but I was convinced. That with such thinking, they could never last long.”
Having said that, he crossed his arms, turned his gaze back to the window, and spoke in a voice filled with an indescribable loneliness.
“From that day, I sat in the assistant winemaker’s seat. I touched every vintage of Leroy with my own hands. The honor wasn’t bad, and I earned decent money. But from then on, strangely, my hometown kept coming to mind.”
Daniel exhaled the breath he had taken in, long and slow.
“That damp, musty smell of the earth in the fog-laden Russian River Valley. France’s terroir was elegant and perfect, but it wasn’t my land. Even while blending Leroy’s Pinot Noir, the cool ridge of Grendel Hill kept rising in my head. I kept comparing without realizing... and Madame Lalou Leroy heard me muttering without realizing and poured scorn on me. At the time, I couldn’t argue back at all... but recently, after drinking Quiet Hill, I realized again, my father’s farm is the best. Not America’s best, but world-class.”
I realized his gradually fading murmurs were not words to me, but to himself.
“I think so too.”
They were not words meant to comfort him.
The Pinot Noir of Burgundy, France, and the Pinot Noir of Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley...
Naturally, Burgundy’s Pinot Noir is evaluated as the pinnacle of history, authority, and complex beauty, but the pure fruit flavor of Russian River Valley is also world-class. It is called the king of New World Pinot Noir, after all.
After driving for over an hour, the car had now passed Santa Rosa and entered the heart of the Russian River Valley. On both sides, barren vineyards after harvest swayed.
“We’re almost there.”
Even before I spoke, Daniel, who knew this place all too well, was looking outside with complicated eyes. Seeing his hands resting on his knees trembling faintly, I could keenly feel how nervous he was.
Daniel grabbed the door handle before the car even stopped. His hand was not filled with the precision befitting the assistant winemaker of France’s greatest winery, but with the impatience of a child about to step on his homeland.
“Thank you, Brian. For calling me back to this land. And... for protecting my father.”
Daniel’s door closed as he got out, and he began walking toward the fog-filled vineyard with staggering steps. After twenty years of wandering, he had finally returned to his terroir. But the moment his foot touched the front yard of the house he had fled from twenty years ago, his steps hardened like a stone stuck in mud.
Beyond the fog-laden vineyard, an old man was slowly straightening his bent back. A man covered in dirt dust over old overalls. The father who had seemed as huge as a mountain twenty years ago had become small and gaunt like a dry branch at the end of autumn.
Elias Grendel turned his head at the sound of the unfamiliar car. The old man’s eyes, which had been staring for a long while at the shabby-looking man standing blankly with his back to the backlight, soon welled with indescribable trembling.
“...Daniel?”
A weak, dry voice broke the silence. With those words, the last reason supporting Daniel collapsed like a burst dam.
He ran and prostrated himself at the old man’s feet. Gone was the honor of being assistant winemaker at France’s greatest winery, gone was the old haughty demeanor he had worn before people who admired him in some part of France.
Only the sinner who had driven a nail into his father’s heart and wandered like a ghost remained.
“Father... I was wrong. Without any contact... I’m sorry.”
Daniel wiped his pouring tears with his sleeve like a child.
“After making that mistake at Harrington, I was so ashamed... I felt I had smeared filth on the name you built your whole life, so I absolutely couldn’t come back. No, I couldn’t forgive myself. I couldn’t admit that I was incompetent. So... I was wrong.”
Daniel’s shoulders shook violently and tears fell drop by drop onto the dirt floor, leaving dark marks. Thinking that even words begging for forgiveness were too extravagant a luxury for himself, he sobbed in suppressed silence.
But what awaited him was neither a fierce scolding nor cold disregard. The rough, rugged old man’s hand, caked in dust, carefully settled on Daniel’s golden hair. A hand calloused from touching grapevines his whole life—the warmest hand in the world.
“As long as you’ve returned safely, that’s enough. As long as you weren’t hurt. I took splendid revenge on that ill-fated bastard at Harrington who tormented you. He probably can’t even show his face before me now.”
“...I know. Quiet Hill made from grapes here won Double Gold, didn’t it. As expected, the grapes you cultivated are the world’s best.”
Elias grabbed his son, who smiled proudly with tear tracks still on his face, with trembling hands and forcibly raised him up. Then he examined every corner of his son’s haggard face, ravaged by twenty years of time. A large tear fell from the old man’s eye and touched Daniel’s cheek.
“I’m sorry. Dad... I was wrong.”
“Why are you in the wrong? What sin do you bear? People grow their skills through mistakes. A large winery may reprimand mistakes, but it should never destroy a person. But your father was weak and couldn’t protect you. I’m the one who’s sorry. If you’ve returned healthy, you have nothing to apologize for.”
Elias embraced his son. The old man’s bony embrace was narrow, but to Daniel it was greater and more peaceful than any splendid castle in France.
Daniel buried his face in his father’s chest and sobbed convulsively like a child. His heart, frozen for twenty years in Burgundy’s cold underground cellar, was finally melting in his father’s earth-scented embrace.