The sky over Napa Valley had finally regained its true color. The red heat that had swallowed the land for two weeks had retreated, and a clear, blue autumn sky spread overhead. Yet upon the land, now returned to peace, the scars of that hellish heat wave remained in full. Oak leaves turned ash-gray, furrows cracked like a tortoise’s shell, and grapevines drooping lifelessly...
Three days after the heat wave ended, Warren and I visited the Lapis Lazuli farm in Coombsville. Warren, who had spent days and nights battling the heat, let out a deep sigh as soon as he got out of the car. Fatigue was still plain on his face, but the moment he saw Lapis Lazuli’s vineyard, his mouth fell open of its own accord.
“Haha! Look at this, Master. I showed you in the photos, didn’t I?”
The vineyard was more than worthy of Warren’s admiration.
Usually, a vineyard immediately after a heat wave goes through its most chaotic period. The vines enter survival mode from extreme stress, and the grapes’ color change—Véraison—either slows down or becomes uneven. Some clusters commonly remain green, while others barely take on a faint purplish hue.
But Lapis Lazuli’s Merlot field was as if it had followed a conductor’s signal, the entire farm beginning to deepen into a rich purple all at once. Each grape berry under the sunlight shone translucently like a jewel, taking on a deep, mysterious violet. It was an intense visual experience, as though life itself were bursting forth.
I plucked a grape and handed it to Warren as I said,
“The mist lowered the temperature of the leaves and maintained photosynthetic efficiency, so the vines were able to store the energy needed to synthesize anthocyanins even during the heat wave. Since the roots didn’t tire out thanks to dawn irrigation, I think that’s why the véraison was able to progress so uniformly.”
Warren immediately put the grape in his mouth. The skin was resilient, and the flesh was full of moisture. A gentle acidity followed after a subtle sweetness. He seemed to close his eyes and imagine the wine’s future.
“This is... perfect physiological ripeness. The sugar level has risen enough, yet the acidity hasn’t collapsed. And for the phenolic compounds in the grape skins to be this solid... Master, there’s no doubt that these two weeks of rest you created will complete the velvety texture of this Merlot someday. When the other Napa wines are swallowed up by rough alcoholic heat that scratches at the mouth, only Astra Veil will maintain its elegance. This isn’t Merlot. It’s a black diamond.”
Warren could not stop marveling.
It was only natural that most California vineyards’ grapes had undergone abnormal concentration due to the heat wave, causing their sugar levels to surge rapidly. And when sugar levels rise, the alcohol content rises as well. The problem is that if there isn’t enough fruit aroma or acidity to support that heightened sugar, the mouth burns when one drinks it, and only the bitterness of alcohol is felt strongly.
That is the representative reason why crude, rough wines are born, and also why vintage matters so much even for the same wine.
“But if the temperature had climbed any higher, it would’ve been dangerous.”
“If the temperature had gone over 105°F, wouldn’t it be the people in danger, not the grapes?”
“Ah... I suppose that’s true.”
As I nodded, Warren’s cell phone rang. After glancing at the caller, Warren answered in a slightly curt tone.
“Who might this be? Why, isn’t it the Emperor of Napa Valley?”
Anyone could tell it was sarcasm, but the person on the other end brushed it off as nothing. Warren Winiarski was a legendary figure in Napa Valley, if no one else, so even William Harlan could not treat him carelessly.
“I hope you made it through the heat all right.”
“I nearly died from the heat before old age could get me. Anyway, I doubt you called because you were worried...?”
“I contacted you because there was something I was curious about.”
“What would that be?”
“Redwood making it through this heat wave... Did you perhaps lend them your help, sir?”
Only then did Warren grasp William Harlan’s intention, and he burst into hearty laughter.
“Hahaha! So that’s why you called. Why? Does your stomach hurt after hearing that Redwood endured the heat wave with cold mist, when you paid good money to buy water rights?”
“It wasn’t just my stomach. In an instant, I became the biggest fool in Napa Valley.”
Only someone whose self-esteem reached the very heavens could call himself a fool. He knew that words like these would not diminish his own worth.
“You weren’t a fool. No one in Napa Valley would call your choice foolish. If they had the money, they all would’ve tried to buy water rights like you did.”
The story of William Harlan buying Redwood’s water rights with money had already spread quite widely through Napa Valley. It was not so much that William Harlan had boasted about it, but that the small vineyard owners who had suddenly come into a large amount of cash had failed to keep their mouths shut.
“I suppose I should say this in advance regarding the 2008 vintage. Astra Veil may end up one step ahead. But next year will be different. I intend to prepare quite thoroughly. Please tell the young man at Redwood that it was a very impressive farming method.”
“I will.”
Warren hung up with a grin and said to me,
“His pride’s been wounded pretty badly, hasn’t it?”
“Whose?”
“William Harlan’s. He must have heard that we brought the farm’s temperature way down with fine mist.”
I tilted my head.
“So why did he call like he was reporting that?”
“Haha, Master, when it comes to farming, you’re practically a ghost, but it seems you still don’t know much about aristocrats.”
“Please enlighten me.”
“He’s certain that, in some official setting, he’ll be told he fell behind Astra Veil. So he’s saying it in advance. That he already knows. As if it’s nothing at all. In other words, it’s also advice not to gloat in his face if a place like the San Francisco Chronicle gives you a higher score than him.”
“My, how deeply he thinks.”
“Hahaha! For these people, pride comes before anything else.”
I nodded as I pictured William Harlan’s stiff, cantankerous face. After all, I already knew very well what kind of evaluation Harlan Estate’s 2008 vintage would receive.
Robert Parker score: 96 points.
It was a slightly lower score compared to the 100 points it had received in 2007, considered one of the greatest years in Napa Valley history. At the time, Robert Parker had tasted Harlan Estate’s 2007 vintage and praised it lavishly as “one of the greatest wines Harlan Estate has ever made.”
The evaluation of 2008 was a little different: “a miracle Bob Levy achieved in a near-disastrous climate.” Considering that it endured both frost damage and a heat wave and still received 96 points, one could guess just how remarkable their facilities, techniques, and know-how were.
“Still, I’m going to knock him down a peg.”
“Why?”
“We need to make him recognize how the hierarchy works from now on. That he’s below us.”
At the sight of me laying my palm flat and drawing a horizontal line, Warren’s mouth fell wide open.
---
At the same time, in Sonoma County. Harrington Winery, a vast empire in this other prestigious wine region distinct from Napa, had also failed to escape the shadow of the heat wave.
Mark Harrington stood in the middle of his expansive Pinot Noir field, staring in stunned despair. His broad, sturdy shoulders sagged, and deep wrinkles were carved into his handsome face. The field spread out at his feet formed a stark contrast with Lapis Lazuli.
Pinot Noir, with its thin skin, is one of the grape varieties most vulnerable to heat waves. In the areas where water had not been supplied in time, the grapes had shriveled up like raisins, and the stems had lost moisture and gone limp like rubber. The leaves, exposed to the scorching sun, had turned a mottled brown.
“Damn it... I’ve never seen a vintage like this in my life. This won’t become wine. It’ll become jam.”
Mark sighed and took a cluster of grapes in his hand. The skins crackled, and the crushed flesh seemed to carry a searing heat.
“I hired dozens of workers and poured money into it, but it wasn’t enough to protect this vast territory.”
Standing beside him was his daughter, Sienna Harrington, who looked just like him. Pretty and lively by nature, she had always been protected by her dependable father, but seeing him fall into despair and lower his head only made her eyes shine brighter.
“It’s not just us, Dad. We can do better next year. If anything, I think there was something to learn from this.”
“Something to learn?”
“Actually, I went to Redwood Farm a few days ago.”
Mark’s expression twisted sharply. Of all places, Redwood was a winery that had been grating on his nerves in all sorts of ways. In particular, it was Redwood that had caused his ill-fated connection with Grendel Farm in Russian River Valley to continue. Hadn’t even that Daniel Grendel joined Redwood?
“Why did you go there?”
Sienna knew her father’s mood had soured, but she did not shrink back.
“I heard that most of the farms Redwood owns had endured the heat wave. I was curious how they were holding out. So I went to see.”
Sienna recalled the mysterious sight of Ironwood Cellars Farm, which she had visited with Armando three days earlier. She had been shocked that, amid a heat wave continuing for days, only the Redwood-affiliated farms had been responding with such composure.
As she stared at the farm in hollow helplessness, Armando had said this.
“See? Brian was right, wasn’t he? I should’ve listened when he told me to dig a deep well, too. Money’s the problem, as always.”
The story of Brian of Redwood giving up the water rights he held for free and digging 1,000-foot wells was famous not only in Napa Valley, but in Sonoma as well. After all, a winery that had introduced a new cult-class wine called Astra Veil had given up its water rights; it would have been stranger if no one had shown interest.
At the time, Armando had said he would look into digging a well himself, only to tremble at the drilling costs and lawyer fees and conclude that he would have to save money first.
“I had the money...”
Standing beside Armando and staring blankly at Ironwood Farm, Sienna could do nothing but mutter in disbelief. When Armando had been agonizing over it, she had not understood Redwood’s method at all.
But now she understood. She understood why Brian had made that choice.
“Dad, let’s dig wells too. Deep ones... If we dig deep wells like Redwood did, we can prepare for both the frost damage and the heat wave we suffered this year.”
At his daughter’s suggestion, Mark Harrington weakly shook his head and roughly crushed a scorched Pinot Noir leaf.
“Sienna, do you think digging a well is as simple as drilling a hole with a drill? The Sonoma County Water Agency is far more conservative than Napa’s. Those stubborn administrators won’t issue permits once you go past 300 feet, saying it destroys the surrounding ecosystem. On top of that, the bedrock layers beneath our land are intricately tangled. Drilling 1,000 feet without geological certainty is no different from gambling millions of dollars into thin air.”
“We still have to do it. What if frost damage and another heat wave come next year?”
“This year’s frost was a once-in-a-century disaster, and heat waves don’t come every time either.”
“But they’re coming faster. Little by little...”
At his daughter’s cool words, Mark too was slightly taken aback. Perhaps, he thought, he had judged things too easily until now.
“You’re saying the climate will keep tormenting us?”
“That’s what I think. I think there was a reason Brian was willing to risk hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, to dig deep wells on four farms. And the results were good, too. Among the 2008 vintages, the only wines that probably survived just like an ordinary year will be Redwood’s.”
“......”
“Some people can’t dig wells because they don’t have the money. But we do, don’t we? Let’s try.”
“To persuade Sonoma’s administrators, an ordinary lawyer won’t even make a dent.”
But even as he spoke, the face of one lawyer came to Mark’s mind.
“Then is it impossible?”
“Perhaps... that fellow might be able to do it.”
“Then we’re going to try, right?”
Mark silently nodded and stroked his daughter’s hair. But a few days later, when Mark Harrington personally visited downtown Napa, he heard a thunderbolt-like statement from the giant lawyer.
“Do you see this? How the work has piled up?”
On the desk of Rainmaker, Napa’s foremost water-related attorney, countless documents were stacked high.
“Then when will my turn be...?”
“It will likely be the middle of next year before your turn comes, sir...”
As Redwood’s response to the heat wave became a hot topic not only in Napa Valley but across all of California, the market value of Rainmaker, who had pulled off the drilling, had skyrocketed.