Grendel Hill Farm in Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley.
As Daniel entered the farm, he saw his father’s back in the distance, moving among the vines, inspecting them. A bent back and rough knuckles. His father remained silent, touching the branches even until Daniel drew near.
“Father.”
Daniel’s voice trembled. His father slowly turned around. A rugged smile spread through the deep furrows of his face.
“You’re here?”
“Yes...”
Daniel couldn’t bring himself to speak. How was he supposed to tell his father that the son who had returned after decades was packing his bags to leave again? Guilt pressed down on his chest. As if sensing his son’s hesitation, his father took off his dirt-stained gloves and asked quietly.
“Looks like you have something to say. Let’s go inside and have a cup of tea.”
Silence flowed between the two men as they sat facing each other at the table in the old cabin. As if steeling himself, Daniel took the plane ticket to Bordeaux from his breast pocket and set it down.
“Father, I’m sorry. I’m going to France with Brian. I think I’ll be staying at Château Belle Époque in Bordeaux for a while.”
Daniel lowered his head. He had vowed never to leave his father alone again, yet here he was, announcing another farewell. He hated himself unbearably for it.
“I only just came back, and I’m truly sorry to tell you I’m leaving again like this. I... I feel like I’m only thinking of myself...”
Daniel’s voice trailed off. But his father neither grew angry nor showed hurt. Instead, he clasped his son’s rough hand tightly in both of his.
“Daniel.”
“Yes, Father.”
“You’re not the sort of man meant to be trapped in this narrow Russian River Valley. I’ve never seen you shine as much as you did when you were at Harrington Farm. You may be here now, but this old father of yours knows when you are happiest.”
His father’s eyes shone with warmth.
“I don’t want you spending your days picking grapes beside this old man. That friend Brian is no ordinary person. You’re going to Bordeaux, the birthplace of the world’s wine, with a man like that to show what you can do. Why would this father of yours feel hurt?”
Seeing Daniel’s eyes brim with tears, his father instead chuckled and patted his hand.
“You’re not leaving. You’re going to complete your dream. Go and show those high-nosed Bordeaux fellows exactly how terrifying the son of a Russian River Valley farmer can be. Don’t worry about this farm. I’ll protect it.”
“Father...”
Daniel bowed his head deeply, tears falling drop by drop from his eyes. It was different from decades ago, when he had left as if fleeing, yet the emotion welling up inside him was even stronger than back then.
“Come back a greater man. Go help Brian well, and make that miracle you two dream of come true.”
Daniel rose from his seat and wiped his tears with his hand.
“I will... I’ll make sure I do, Father.”
Daniel’s steps as he left the farm were heavy, yet light. When he looked back, his father was still standing at the farm entrance, watching his son’s retreating figure.
“Father! I’ll come back the best!”
Daniel waved his hand broadly toward his father, and Elias likewise waved back at his son. The father and son waved to each other for a long while like that, gradually growing farther apart.
---
As we left Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport, a humidity completely different from Napa Valley’s dry, warm air rushed over us.
The black chauffeured car Victor Karloff had sent glided through downtown Bordeaux and raced northeast toward Saint-Émilion, the heart of Bordeaux’s Right Bank. Outside the window, legendary châteaux whose names alone were enough to stir the heart unfolded like paintings.
“Bordeaux really is a strange place. To think all those splendid castles were built for wine.”
Chloe murmured in admiration as she looked out the window. Daniel, seated beside her, exchanged a brief conversation with the driver in fluent French before answering.
“Here, wine is rank and history itself. But the Château Belle Époque we’re heading to is also the hottest symbol of failure in Bordeaux society right now. People are probably betting on how Redwood, a rising American winery, will deal with Victor’s white elephant.”
The car soon passed through the village of Saint-Émilion and entered an outlying area where the elevation noticeably dropped. The splendid limestone hills receded, and in their place appeared a dark green plain. And in the middle of that plain, an eighteenth-century-style château, so enormous and ornate that it felt almost out of place, revealed itself.
It was Château Belle Époque.
“My God... It’s so beautiful.”
Chloe took my hand and smiled brightly. She, too, ran a large farm in America, but the sentiment evoked by an aristocratic stone manor was incomparable.
“Should I live here?”
She whipped her head toward me and asked, but at my bitter smile, she turned back toward the stone manor.
“I know. I have to go back to my farm. I just said it. But I think it was a good idea to come. I would’ve regretted it if I hadn’t.”
“......”
“But I have a new dream now. I’m going to build an old-fashioned stone house like this in California. I’m going to live there happily.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say that the heating bills would be high and that it probably wouldn’t suit the times, so I simply nodded.
The ones who greeted us as soon as we got out of the car were a dozen or so local staff members. At their center stood a thin man who looked to be at least fifty. He was surely Lucas, the chief winemaking manager I already knew from the documents.
“Welcome to Château Belle Époque, Mr. Brian Choi.”
He bowed politely to me, who had been granted Victor’s full authority. Since I was Asian and young, it probably wasn’t hard for him to recognize me. But in his eyes, there was a strange mixture of expectation and desperation rather than wariness. To these people, with the blade of dismissal looming before them after repeated failures, the genius winemaker from Napa must have seemed no different from their last lifeline.
“We have been waiting for you. I am Lucas, in charge of winemaking here. Please, come inside.”
Daniel smoothly helped translate from beside me.
“Shall we?”
The winery we entered under Lucas’s guidance was the very pinnacle of capital. Dozens of truncated conical stainless steel tanks stood in rows, and every process was controlled by a central control system.
I opened the winemaking logs from the past three years that Lucas handed me. The pages were filled with the mad numbers Michel Durand had left behind.
“...Reverse osmosis concentration rate at 15%, chaptalization level at 2.5%, and fermentation temperature raised to 32 degrees.”
My brow furrowed as I read through the log. Warren Winiarski, who was skimming the contents beside me, clicked his tongue.
“That fellow Michel Durand got far too greedy.”
I raised my head and looked at Lucas. He had his head lowered like a sinner.
“Lucas, this land has heavy clay soil and sits low, making it one of the coldest areas in Bordeaux. Am I right?”
“Yes, that’s correct. Because of that, the grapes often failed to ripen sufficiently.”
“So Durand tried to suppress that coldness with technology. He must have used the reverse osmosis system to forcibly remove water from the grape must and artificially raise the sugar concentration, then poured in sugar to make up for the lacking alcohol level. On top of that, he carried out over-extraction at high temperatures to draw out a darker color. Am I right?”
“Exactly. Mr. Durand said it was the only way to receive Parker points. But the results were not good. The wine was sweet on the first sip, but the moment it went down the throat, all that remained was an unpleasant metallic fishiness and coarse tannins...”
I walked toward the enormous reverse osmosis machine set in the middle of the winery. It was cutting-edge equipment worth billions of won, but unfortunately, it was not fulfilling its value.
“Lucas, the metallic fishiness in the wine did not come from the soil. Merlot grown in cold clay naturally has high acidity. But Durand forcibly concentrated it to raise the sugar content, and in that process, the grape’s acid components were concentrated as well. To hide the abnormally high total acidity, he would have added acidity regulators again, and that chemical collision ruined the wine.”
A stir ran through the staff gathered in the winery. They began looking at the young Asian man who had proven, with numbers, the error they had committed for three years in mere minutes, their eyes mixed with awe.
I reached for the equipment’s power switch.
“As of today, this concentrator will cease operation. Dispose of all acidity regulators and chaptalization sugar as well.”
“But... if we do that, the grapes’ sugar content will be low, and the wine will turn thin, won’t it?”
Lucas asked carefully, but I answered with a smile.
“Who said we were making Merlot?”
“Pardon?”
Without answering his questioning gaze, I went out to the vineyard. The vast 150-acre estate seemed well maintained, but the vines looked somewhat exhausted.
Warren put on boots and walked into the field, scooping up a handful of soil.
“This sensation, like touching the inside of a refrigerator against the palm of my hand... It has truly been a long time since I felt soil this cold.”
I, too, bent my knees and touched the soil. The blue clay layer, with its deep bluish hue, was holding abundant moisture. It might be a hellish environment for Merlot, but for certain varieties, there could be no greater heaven.
I stood again and spoke to the staff, who were watching with some tension.
“Most of the vines here are Merlot, correct?”
“Yes...”
“I intend to change the variety.”
“Change the variety? How much...?”
“All of it. I intend to pull up every vine here.”
At my bombshell declaration, Lucas and the staff following behind me were aghast. In Bordeaux, pulling up perfectly healthy grapevines was as shocking as digging up an ancestor’s grave.
“Dr. Choi! That’s far too dangerous. Many of these vines are over twenty years old!”
“Lucas, we’re going to let the vines that have struggled for twenty years finally rest. Instead, we need to find the master that this cold clay and limestone are desperately longing for. Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.”
At that moment, Warren Winiarski, who had been standing to the side watching, spoke with his arms crossed.
“Brian, hold on. I understand your vision, but replacing all of the Merlot, the symbol of Bordeaux’s Right Bank, is not simply a matter of changing grape varieties. This is a direct challenge to the history of Saint-Émilion. Are you truly certain this cold clay has that much value for white wine?”
At Warren’s sharp question, the gazes of Lucas and the local staff once again focused on me. The doubt of the legendary Warren Winiarski carried even greater weight for them.
I asked Lucas.
“Do you happen to have a map that shows the strata in this area?”
“O-of course. Please follow me.”
We entered the old-fashioned stone building again, and Lucas brought out a map. I spread it out and spoke to Warren.
“Warren, look at the lower layers of this land. Beneath the deep blue clay, a massive bed of limestone runs through it. When Merlot’s roots reach this wet clay, it suffocates and gives off a fishy odor. Sauvignon Blanc is different. It converts this cold energy into acidity. What I want is not an ordinary Bordeaux white. It is a white wine that combines the sharpness of the Loire style with Bordeaux’s unique structure... and that...”
My gaze went straight to Daniel.
“Mr. Daniel Grendel, I’d like you to make it.”