He thought of Domaine Leroy’s cool, silent underground cellar. Then he turned his gaze to the vineyard outside the winery.
“Have you found a way?”
Daniel gave a faint nod to Armando, who had asked the question, then looked back up at the tank and said,
“Do you have a ladle?”
“We do. Just a moment.”
Holding the stainless-steel ladle Armando had given him, Daniel climbed the catwalk up to the tank. Reaching the top of the tank, which stood nearly five meters high, he took a breath, held it, and opened the hatch.
When the carbon dioxide (CO2) from the ongoing fermentation burst out, he turned his head slightly, then immediately looked inside the tank. He saw the cap, a thick layer where purple foam and grape skins had mixed together.
Very carefully, Daniel scooped a ladleful of purple foam from a particular section at the top of the tank. He placed it in the small flask he had prepared in advance, then closed the hatch and climbed down.
“What is that?”
“Uh... if you’re Brian’s friend, you go to UC Davis, right?”
“Of course. Brian’s in Viticulture and Enology, and I’m in Agricultural and Resource Economics, so we’re in the same college.”
“Then your basic classes would be the same, but...”
Seeing Daniel’s slightly doubtful look, Armando quickly continued.
“I’m taking Viticulture and Enology classes too, and my grades aren’t bad, you know?”
Only then did Daniel’s expression soften.
“In that case... First, you know that primary alcoholic fermentation is the process where yeast consumes sugar and releases alcohol and carbon dioxide, right?”
“That’s the basics.”
“Right. By the time fermentation is nearly finished, the alcohol concentration in the tank rises to about thirteen to fifteen percent. At that point, most of the fragile yeasts are poisoned by the very alcohol they created and die off. But among them are survivor yeasts that are genetically tough or perfectly adapted to the local environment.”
“Then what’s in there is...?”
“That’s right. Have you learned about the cap?”
Only then did Armando understand what Daniel was talking about.
“I know. It’s the layer where grape skins, seeds, stems, and yeast colonies get pushed up by the carbon dioxide gas and float like an island at the top of the fermentation tank. Ah! So there are survivor yeasts in that cap? Now that I think about it, the cap layer is in contact with oxygen, so it would be the best environment for yeasts to multiply.”
Daniel nodded and explained with a pleased expression.
“Wild yeasts selected this way carry the characteristics of the region better than anything. Now we need to adjust the temperature and supply oxygen so these little guys can build up enough strength. This is the weapon I’m going to show Brian. But...”
After touching the tank, Daniel’s face hardened abruptly.
“Because this place makes vinegar, the system is in terrible shape. The temperature-control system isn’t working properly...”
“When we originally took over the winery, we were supposed to fix the temperature-control system... but since we were making vinegar, we didn’t.”
Vinegar could ferment at a much higher temperature than wine, around thirty to forty degrees Celsius, so for Armando, who did not have much spare capital, there had been no reason at all to invest in a precise cooling system.
“I see. At least it’s a relief it hasn’t entered secondary malolactic fermentation yet...”
“Why?”
“Judging by its condition, the temperature is too high right now. It looks like it’ll rise even more in a day or two, and since there’s no glycol cooling system, no automatic temperature control, we’re in a bind.”
“But I heard from Brian that the place you worked was Domaine Leroy, Mr. Daniel. Did they have a temperature-control system there too? Doesn’t France usually not have one?”
Domaine Leroy was fairly famous in the wine industry as an extremely traditional winery, so it was not strange for Armando to mention it.
“Good grief... Not every place in France rejects advanced technology. But Domaine Leroy was different. At the winery I used to work at, instead of a glycol cooling system, they used the natural cold of the underground cellar, and if that wasn’t enough, they ran cold water over the outside of the tanks.”
Hearing that, Armando’s mouth fell open.
“At that point, isn’t that practically a medieval winemaking method?”
“Madame Lalou Leroy is a bit special. She’s famous for her fanatical biodynamic farming methods and her thorough rejection of modern enology...”
“How far does it go?”
Daniel recalled his memories of France for a moment and gave a bitter smile.
“Madame Lalou is an extraordinary person. She goes beyond simple organic farming and decides pruning, harvesting, and bottling dates according to the cycles of the moon and the positions of the constellations.”
“Wow... that’s almost cra—”
Armando could not bring himself to finish the sentence, but Daniel guessed what he had been about to say and shrugged with a smile.
“That’s not all. She severely restricts not only pesticides and chemical fertilizers, but even sulfites, sulfur dioxide, which are commonly used in modern winemaking. Instead, they would pack cow manure into a cow horn, bury it in the ground, then dig it back up and use it.”
“.......”
“Scientific knowledge wasn’t important to her. She ignored profitability too. The winery had a philosophy that perfection came before money, so they left only enough grapes for one or two glasses of wine on each vine and cut away the rest. All to concentrate the vine’s energy into a small number of berries.”
“She really is something. Most people wouldn’t even think of doing that.”
“That’s right. She is extraordinary. In any case, since the tank doesn’t have a cooling device, it’s primitive, but let’s start by opening the manual valve. And can you get some dry ice?”
Armando understood that opening the manual valve was intended to run cold groundwater over the outside of the tank, but he was puzzled that Daniel was asking for dry ice as well.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Pour it in.”
Daniel pointed toward the top of the tank with his finger. He meant he would open the hatch and pour the dry ice inside.
“Is... that okay?”
“People sometimes do it as an emergency measure. If you don’t believe me, ask your friend.”
At that, Armando withdrew his suspicion.
“If that’s the case... all right.”
While Armando rushed around opening the manual valve, pumping up groundwater, and ordering dry ice, Daniel stood blankly in place, looking up at the tank as he murmured quietly.
“Cab or Pinot Noir, they’re all just grapes. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
A firm determination flowed from Daniel’s eyes.
The Deer Ridge Country Club complex in Brentwood, California, where Frederick’s mansion was located, was something of a symbol for the wealthy people of the area. And from one mansion, set against the refreshing backdrop of the golf course, the fragrant scent of cherries was wafting out.
On the terrace of the mansion, where the key figures of the Brentwood Cherry Growers cooperative had gathered, what they held in their hands was not the usual Cabernet Sauvignon, but Ruby Quartz, a brandy made of ruby-red liquid.
“My God... Frederick. How on earth did you get this? Even I couldn’t get my hands on it.”
Thomas Cromwell emptied his glass and burst out in admiration. He was a key member of the cooperative and one of the so-called “cherry godfathers,” owning even more farmland than Frederick.
“Thomas is right. I heard LA and San Francisco are in an uproar trying to get this stuff. They say getting more than one bottle is like plucking a star from the sky, and you got several cases? Two cases?”
Another farm owner, Samuel Reed, chimed in. He had produced premium cherries under the name of his own farm, Reed Family Farm, but he had no choice but to surrender to the aroma in his glass.
In high spirits, Frederick shrugged and took a sip of Ruby Quartz. As the alcohol pleasantly rose within him, the pride he had always felt toward Brian, his daughter Chloe’s boyfriend and his business partner, poured out as if a dam had burst.
“Hahaha, haven’t you all seen the news? Which winery Warren Winiarski works at? It’s Redwood. The winery belonging to Brian, my daughter Chloe’s boyfriend. On top of that, this Ruby Quartz is made at a distillery owned by Brian’s friend. So bringing out a couple cases is nothing to me. This much is hardly worth mentioning... hahaha! Drink, drink!”
Frederick’s hearty laughter made him look as if he had already welcomed Brian, the owner of Redwood, as his son-in-law.
In truth, Astra Veil, which was said to have raised Redwood’s value tenfold, was known to be something even the fairly rich could not obtain no matter how much they paid, so in terms of popularity, Astra Veil ranked far higher than Ruby Quartz.
However, brandy had considerable charm of its own, and because it could not be obtained easily despite its high price, Frederick, who had two cases of it, was bound to be the object of great envy among liquor enthusiasts.
Moreover, they had heard that he also had a full case of Astra Veil, so the cooperative members were all looking at Frederick with eyes full of envy.
At that moment, William Hartford, who had been quietly swirling his glass in one corner of the terrace, narrowed his eyes. As the chairman of the Brentwood cooperative and the head of Hartford Estate, the oldest family in the region, he could not smile even as he tasted the explosively aromatic Ruby Quartz.
Originally, as the leader of the cooperative, he was supposed to be the star of every gathering, but at some point, the members’ attention had begun to gather around Frederick, and that displeased him.
“The cherries in this brandy are from your farm too?”
“Hahaha! That’s right. Our cherries go to Redwood, and from there, the cherry juice is sent to the distillery, apparently. Brian cares so much about cherry quality... every time we send them, he checks each and every field bin, the box-style crates that hold the fruit.”
At that, the cooperative members praised Brian, saying he was unusually meticulous. William Hartford’s brow twitched slightly as he asked another question.
“Come to think of it, was it from the year before last? The volume shipped from your farm has been anything but ordinary. The size far exceeded the standard, and the sugar content was so high I wondered whether the Brix meter was broken.”
William’s voice sounded benevolent, but Frederick could still sense the cold jealousy subtly beneath it.
Over the past year, an abnormal heat wave and drought had swept California, causing most farms to suffer from plummeting yields and declining quality. Yet Frederick’s farm alone had brazenly poured out top-grade cherries, so it was only natural that they would be curious.
“What’s your secret, Frederick? We have a bond among ourselves, don’t we? Are you perhaps using some new special fertilizer from Israel? Or a soil conditioner?”
Samuel Reed approached with sparkling eyes. But Frederick merely swirled the Ruby Quartz in his rocks glass and laughed it off.
“Hahaha, you may not believe me if I say this, but I don’t know exactly either.”
“What are you talking about? If you don’t want to tell us, just say so. What do you mean you don’t know?”
William Hartford’s expression hardened at once.
“I’m telling you, it’s true. I entered into a strategic partnership with Brian, my daughter Chloe’s boyfriend.”
The way he kept emphasizing “Chloe’s boyfriend” was exceedingly irritating, but William let it pass for the moment.
“A strategic partnership? What is that?”
“It’s a contract where he increases our farm’s production and revenue, and in exchange, he takes a portion of the sales. At first, I wondered whether I could trust it, but starting the very next year, the quality of the cherries began to change.”
Only then did William Hartford recall something.
“Back then, that... pizza, you mean?”
“Hahaha! That’s right. The thing I said about whether he was planning to sell pizza to all of California. It was something Brian did while tending to the farm. So while I know the land changed, I don’t know exactly by what principle it changed.”
At that moment, Thomas Cromwell, who had been listening, cut in.
“...You said you’d lost interest in the cherry farm these days. Was that why?”
“Yes. My daughter manages the cherry farm entirely. She’s even running a pear orchard together with her boyfriend, and the two of them are so hardworking... hahaha!”
“Then what about you?”
“Ah, did I not mention it? I’m running an almond farm.”
In one sense, it was an extremely important statement, but everyone there had lived for decades through cherry farming, and it was common for them to grow several other crops as well, so no one asked about it.
They were all distracted by something else.
“A strategic partnership...”
Watching William Hartford murmur quietly, Frederick inwardly gave a bitter smile. Since Brian would not enter into partnerships with other cherry farms, his sense of victory grew even stronger.
A cherry farm that had formed a strategic partnership with Redwood, the hottest farm in Napa Valley. Now, with that title alone, the cherries from his farm were certain to become even more valuable.