The bitter winds of January passed, and time flowed swiftly on until warm April arrived, making it hard to believe it had ever been cold. The sun was gradually sinking, and the sunset dyeing Napa Valley red softened the heart as it always did.
“Cough, cough...”
“I told you to rest. Why do you keep coming in to work? And even when you do, you stay late...”
I scolded Warren, who had caught a cold in spring despite not having caught one all winter. He had a blanket draped around him like an overcoat, enough that even a stranger would have guessed he was sick. But he shot me a look as if to ask what nonsense I was talking about.
“At my age, once you start lying down, you can’t move as well after that. Besides, this is something you go through once around this time of year.”
There was a bit of sincerity in his protest. A slightly sensitive reaction. But I understood how he felt. We had heard that Robert Mondavi’s health had worsened considerably.
He hated being treated like an old man who would die any day now. Perhaps it was because, in Warren’s heart, the mindset of the young man who had just begun learning wine still remained intact.
“All right. Shall I make you some vin chaud?”
“That would be nice.”
Mr. Warren had been very fond of the vin chaud I had made for him once before.
“Wait just a moment.”
I went into the kitchen set up at the winery to prepare meals for the workers and took out a bottle of Echelon. It was far too fine a wine for making vin chaud, but if the recipient was a legendary figure like Warren, using Echelon for it didn’t feel like much of a waste.
I sliced an apple, a lemon, and an orange, poured them all in with the wine, added a suitable amount of spices like cinnamon and cloves, and began to boil it.
Halfway through, I added sweetness with honey obtained from the bees kept to pollinate Frederick’s almond farm, then let it simmer gently over low heat for about twenty to thirty minutes. When I felt that a good deal of the alcohol had evaporated, I turned off the heat.
“Here, drink.”
Warren blew on the vin chaud in the mug and took a sip with a soft slurp, a faint smile forming at the corners of his mouth.
“You would have done well even if you’d become a chef instead of a winemaker.”
“I take after my mom, so I’ve got a good touch with food. Good wine doesn’t come out of nowhere, you know.”
“Heh heh heh...”
“Are you not thinking of visiting him?”
He remained silent for a moment, feeling the warm heat of the vin chaud, then opened his mouth after a while.
“That friend wouldn’t want it.”
“Do you really think so?”
“If a person has strong pride... especially the more he has achieved, the more he clings to authority and dignity. He won’t want to show his weakness. That’s why we already exchanged our final farewell.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“Wow... you’re both incredibly coolheaded, aren’t you?”
“This isn’t being coolheaded. It’s courtesy toward a teacher preparing for his end. I’m trying to preserve his dignity.”
Judging by the distant look in Warren’s eyes, his feelings were clearly complicated, so I didn’t ask any further. But this time, Warren asked me a question.
“What about your girlfriend’s cherries? Does it seem like the air shipment will go smoothly?”
Warren showed deep interest in this matter as well.
“Yes. If they ship in early May, they’re set to be flown straight to Japan. It’ll be a considerable amount. The forward contract volume alone is over two hundred tons.”
“Impressive. How on earth did you know about that too?”
“About what?”
“I knew you had a deep understanding not only of grape growing but of farming as a whole, but how did you know so much about a new technology like hydrocooling? And what is MAP packaging technology on top of that?”
“Ah... the companies were already promoting it, weren’t they? Telling people to use their technology for overseas shipping.”
“There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of companies in the world promoting their own technology and telling people to try it. You knew about all of that?”
“I learned because I was interested in cherry distribution. Honestly, why are you so suspicious?”
When I used the word suspicious, Warren found himself at a loss for words. He blinked, then opened his mouth as if to say something again.
“But...”
“Huh? Wait a second.”
I cut him off and raised my hand.
A subtle chill brushed over my skin. It was strange. April in California was already fully steeped in spring. No matter how the sun was setting, there was no way the air should grow cold this quickly. It was a feeling like the sting at the tip of your nose when you opened a freezer door.
“Why?”
“It’s cold. What’s the temperature today?”
“Huh?”
The moment he failed to answer, I lifted my head. There were no particular clouds in the sky. But the humidity and temperature in the air felt abnormal. I was gripped by a chilling premonition. A farmer’s body does not lie.
I hurriedly ran into the winery facility where the thermometer was hung.
‘Current temperature: 4.5°C, humidity: 88%’
My eyes snapped open. The weather service forecast that morning had definitely said the low would be 7°C. Under ordinary circumstances, this temperature might have been fine, but the humidity was far too high. Cold, highly humid air with not a breath of wind. These were perfect conditions for frost.
“Damn it.”
I cursed under my breath and grabbed my car keys. Warren looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“What temperature is it?”
“4.5 degrees, and the humidity is 88%!”
“Goddamn it!”
Warren was startled and dropped the blanket draped over him. I picked up the blanket from the ground, shook it off, and placed it over him again, but he set down his mug with a grave expression.
“Because of this cold, I couldn’t sense the temperature properly.”
“That can happen. I’ll call my dad. Until then, please prepare our entire farm against frost damage. I think I need to go to Chloe.”
“Do that.”
If it was Warren, and not anyone else, he would be able to make perfect preparations not only for Redwood, but for Silver Oak, Ironwood Cellars, and Lapis Lazuli as well—a farm spanning a hundred acres.
I started the car and immediately left the farm while calling Armando.
“Armando!”
“Hm? What is it, all of a sudden? Did you get curious about the wine? Daniel’s practically been living at the winery lately, you know? Look forward to it. A splendid wine is—”
I cut off Armando’s chatter.
“That’s not it. It’s frost damage!”
“Huh?”
“I said frost damage!”
Armando was a farmer too, and a student at UC Davis. And his grades were fairly decent, at that... so he immediately understood just how serious the words frost damage were.
Radiation cooling.
A phenomenon in which heat from the ground surface is radiated into the night sky and released, causing the ground temperature to drop sharply. It was especially deadly on clear, windless nights with high humidity. The moisture in cherry fruit freezes immediately at minus one degree. Cherries that suffer frost damage inevitably lose a great deal of market value.
“Uh... got it.”
“First, start up the large wind machines and turn on the sprinklers! If there’s anything you’re not sure about, ask Daniel.”
“Got it!”
Armando had been lucky enough never to have experienced frost damage until now, so I was anxious, but since the assistant head winemaker of Domaine Leroy was there, I wasn’t too worried.
I called Chloe and told her to gather every worker without exception. After about an hour, when I arrived, the entrance to the cherry farm was packed not only with her but with Frederick, Brandon, and dozens of workers.
I got out of the car and, without even properly greeting them, spoke.
“Listen carefully. Frost damage is coming right now. The current temperature is above freezing... three degrees. If it stays at this temperature, or if it doesn’t fall below zero, there won’t be any problem. But if it drops below that... the crop will suffer frost damage.”
I checked the thermometer I had brought in advance and continued.
“First, the humidity is over 85% right now. If the wind stops like this, the moment we reach the dew point, frost will settle on every leaf and fruit, and the tissue will immediately freeze and burst.”
Frederick’s face turned ashen. Having worked the soil for decades, he knew well how terrifying frost damage was. The same went for his children, Chloe and Brandon. Even if they had never experienced and overcome it firsthand, they would have heard what kind of damage it caused.
“......”
“Forget the weather service forecast. From this moment on, every minute and every second will determine our entire year’s farming. If the temperature ends above freezing, we’ll all be happy, but we have to move under the assumption that it will drop below zero.”
At my icy voice, the murmuring workers all shut their mouths at once. Even Frederick and Brandon swallowed dryly, as if overwhelmed by my gaze. Without even unfolding a map, I pointed out the farm sections embedded in my mind and gave orders.
“Brandon, you go to the almond section right now. The almonds have already set fruit, so if the insides freeze, it’s over. No matter how many wind machines you have, run them all at full power. But wind machines alone won’t be enough. Pour kerosene into the large smudge pots placed beneath the fans and light them. You make the hot air rise, and the fans scatter it back downward. It creates an artificial greenhouse effect...”
“What does that even...?”
To Brandon, who didn’t understand, I spoke in a firm tone.
“Even if you don’t understand, just do as I tell you. Got it?”
“...Got it.”
“Go right now. Immediately. If the temperature inside the almond fruit falls below zero... at that point, you’ll be harvesting stones instead of almonds. Go!”
“Got it...”
Brandon didn’t look back. He pulled aside several farm workers and got into a vehicle.
After confirming that the tires had kicked up dust and disappeared into the distance, I spoke to Uncle Frederick.
“The cherries are in the green fruit stage right now, so even minus one degree will destroy the cell walls. You know that well, don’t you? The moisture inside the fruit expands and tears the tissue apart.”
“Of course, I know...”
“You know the basics. Wind machines, smudge pots...”
“I know.”
On nights when radiation cooling occurs, the ground surface is cold, while an inversion layer with warmer temperatures forms ten to fifteen meters above. The reason for running large wind machines is to forcibly pull the warmer air above downward and raise the temperature around the grapevines by about one to two degrees Celsius.
Spreading kerosene-filled smudge pots throughout the farm is, of course, to raise the temperature near the ground. Though with environmental regulations becoming stricter, people had begun to avoid using them.
“This time, we won’t use smudge pots. If the temperature falls to minus three or four degrees, or below that, fire from oil drums won’t stop the fruit from freezing.”
“Then?”
“After I leave, go to the main pump room and run the sprinklers at full capacity in overhead mode. We’re going to pour water down over the tops of the trees.”
Frederick’s eyes widened. Spraying water in cold weather was, by common sense, something that would make the trees even colder.
“Water? If we spray water in this weather, everything will turn into lumps of ice.”
“That’s right. Ice will form on the cherries as soon as the water touches them, but don’t be afraid. The latent heat released when water turns into ice will hold the fruit temperature exactly at zero degrees. Remember this: you must not stop the water. If the water supply is cut off before the sun rises and the ice completely melts, that’s when the cherries will truly freeze to death. Have every single person check the nozzles by section. If even one nozzle freezes and clogs, assume all the trees in that section are dead.”
Under ordinary circumstances, he would have raised questions, but Frederick forced down his curiosity and nodded.
“We’ll do that.”
“Good. Chloe, you come with me. We have to go to Lodi right now.”
She hurriedly called the farm’s head manager on her phone and ordered him to gather the workers.
I started the car with Chloe inside and said,
“The cherries are important, but the pear trees are actually the most important. If the cherries or almonds suffer frost damage, we lose one year’s farming, but if the pear trees, which are only in their third year now, suffer frost damage, that’s a different story.”
“What happens then?”
“The trunks freeze and burst. Dieback.”
“Ah...”
“If that happens, the tree structure is ruined. The efforts of the past two years all go up in smoke.”
At my words, Chloe’s face turned the color of earth.