Four days later, at Belle Époque.
Whiiiiir—!
The sharp whine of a small auger drill shattered the silence that had settled over Belle Époque. Beside Daniel, a local laborer in worn clothes, covered in dust, gripped the drill handle tightly. Once it passed through the thirty-centimeter layer of topsoil, the tip of the drill struck the hard limestone bedrock and spat out a rough vibration.
“Now! Deeper!”
At my shout, the laborer put all his strength into pressing down, and at last, with a crunch, the bedrock gave way. Into the hole, we poured the coarse gravel and high-temperature-fired charcoal we had prepared in advance. This was the core of the vertical aeration drainage holes I had devised.
“Master, that’s the four hundredth hole now. Will this really be enough?”
Daniel asked as he looked over the ground we had drilled so far. He was doing it because I told him to, but he still seemed worried.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the ground, I clapped the dirt from my blackened hands and spoke.
“You know that for grapevine roots to breathe, there has to be space in the soil for air to pass through, right?”
“Of course I know.”
“The clay on Bordeaux’s Right Bank is made up of extremely fine particles. When these particles meet water, they swell up like a sponge. The problem is that they completely fill the gaps between the particles. You know that much, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
It had suddenly turned into an agronomy lecture, but Daniel did not dare laugh it off. Perhaps because he acknowledged the knowledge I had shown so far.
“On top of that, in ordinary soil, when it rains, water seeps deep underground and drains away. But the massive limestone bedrock beneath Belle Époque’s soil is no different from a waterproof membrane, so even the water that barely makes it through the swollen clay layer gets blocked by the bedrock and has nowhere to go. What I did by drilling holes and filling them with gravel and charcoal is the same as forcibly piercing a blocked castle wall. Through these channels, the water pooled above the bedrock drains downward, and fresh air is drawn into the empty space.”
After finishing my explanation, I started the portable pump. Through the transparent tube connected to the pump, a pale blue liquid flowed into the irrigation line. It was a high-purity trace element chelating agent and a ferrous sulfate solution, flown in by air express from the German chemical company Merck.
“You understand up to this point, right?”
“Yeah, perfectly...”
“Good. We’ve opened the airway and let it breathe, so now we have to make it able to eat what it needs. The problem is that the calcareous soil prevents nutrient absorption. To understand that, you first have to understand the principle by which plants absorb nutrients. Plants absorb nutrients from the soil in an extremely narrow boundary zone, about one to three millimeters right next to the root. We call that the rhizosphere.”
“Hmm...”
“In other words, theoretically, even if all the soil here is strongly alkaline, if we change only the area very close to the roots, the trees will be able to absorb nutrients without any problem.”
“That’s... possible?”
Daniel looked as if he could not believe it at all. He had studied agronomy too, but he had never learned knowledge at this level, nor had he even heard that such a farming method existed.
“I’m saying it’s possible in theory.”
“No...”
“To put it simply, it’s like this. If you’re standing on a sandy playground, but only the ground directly under your feet is grass, then the tree doesn’t know the place you’re standing is a sandy playground. It thinks it’s a lawn. You could say we’re tricking the tree’s senses.”
“That’s incredible.”
It was incredible, indeed. Even in this era, the concept of the rhizosphere existed, but precisely adjusting fertilizer concentration to pinpoint the pH of a specific spot was, by today’s standards, a core technology of future smart farms.
The reason Christian had come in person and looked at me with pity was because, based on what he knew, to resolve this disastrous situation, we would have had to completely overturn the soil or replace every single rootstock. How pitiful must it have seemed?
“Now we’re going to target only the two millimeters around the roots. When sulfate ions are introduced, they react with the calcium ions near the roots and temporarily lower the pH to around 6.0. In that fleeting moment, iron and minerals are drawn up into the tree’s xylem. Once that happens...”
As I added the scientific explanation, three black sedans pulled up side by side at the entrance to the farm. The car doors opened, and the men who stepped out were middle-aged gentlemen dressed in dark navy suits. On their chests, the logos of the Bordeaux Wine Council, CIVB, and the National Institute of Origin and Quality, INAO, were clearly embroidered.
“Ah, they’re here to interfere properly, aren’t they?”
Daniel’s complexion turned pale. Far heavier and more realistic than Christian’s mockery, the law of Bordeaux had descended upon this place.
“Are you Brian Choi?”
“That’s right?”
“I am Louis Garraud, chief inspector of the CIVB.”
The man at the front swept his cold gaze over the holes drilled throughout the farm and the machinery.
“And?”
“We received a report that unauthorized soil improvement and terrain alteration are taking place here at Château Belle Époque. According to Article 14 of the INAO regulations, vineyards maintaining AOC status must adhere to traditional cultivation methods, and arbitrarily altering the physical structure of the soil is strictly prohibited.”
Louis Garraud’s voice was thick with bureaucratic stubbornness. He pointed to the sulfur powder scattered beside the saplings and continued.
“What are these artificial chemicals? Bordeaux terroir is not a human laboratory. What you are doing right now is an act that damages the identity of Saint-Émilion wine. You must stop work immediately.”
In truth, I had already given up on the AOC rating from the beginning, but without revealing my thoughts, I slowly took off my gloves and approached Louis Garraud.
“Monsieur Louis, what is your definition of terroir?”
His eyebrows twitched at the unexpected question.
“Terroir is the crystallization of harmony between the sky, the earth, and the human tradition that cultivates it.”
“You’re absolutely right. Now look beneath this land. Due to reckless over-fertilization in the past and faulty drainage design, the clay layer had acidified, and the groundwater was rotting. Was I the one ruining the terroir, or was it the other farms that devastated the land through indiscriminate nitrate use until now?”
“That is...”
Momentarily flustered, Louis Garraud flipped through his documents and retorted.
“Even so, this kind of drilling work is unprecedented. It is an act that destroys the continuity of the strata!”
“It isn’t destruction. It’s a respirator that lets the land breathe. Just as wine needs oxygen when it ferments, the earth needs to breathe as well. The holes I drilled account for less than 0.1 percent of the total area. But the oxygen supplied through that 0.1 percent of holes awakens the soil microorganisms in the remaining 99.9 percent. In conclusion, this is not chemical improvement, but biological restoration.”
Then I led Louis Garraud to one of the saplings.
“There is plenty of iron in the soil. It’s just that in alkaline soil, it hardens into an insoluble state, so the plant cannot consume it. The sulfur component I added acts as a catalyst that aids microbial metabolism and changes the iron into a soluble form. We aren’t artificially injecting iron. We’re helping the tree feed on the nutrients that already exist in the soil by itself. Is there any farming method more perfectly nature-friendly than this?”
At my logical and scientific rebuttal, a small murmur arose among the committee members. Louis Garraud, too, was plainly flustered. He must have thought this was simply a case of massive American capital ruining the land.
“If what you say is true, there should be results within a week. Once iron absorption begins, the chlorosis will stop.”
“Probably.”
Louis Garraud nodded, adjusted his glasses, and declared.
“Very well. I will grant you a grace period of one week. If these saplings do not recover their green color by then, Belle Époque’s AOC status will be permanently revoked, and all construction will be ordered restored to its original state. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“Then... let us see what results you produce.”
After the committee’s cars left, Daniel sank down as if his legs had given out.
“Master, will it really be all right? Revoking the classification...”
“Don’t worry. A plant’s biological clock doesn’t lie.”
Only after the inspectors’ black sedans vanished from sight, kicking up clouds of dust, did silence return to the open ground of Belle Époque. I swept back my sweat-soaked bangs and held out a hand to Daniel, who was still sitting on the ground.
“Daniel, get up. Hah, it’s perfect weather for a drink.”
That evening, we sat facing each other on a small terrace behind the old château building, where the vineyard could be seen at a glance. On the table were old glasses brought from Bourgogne and steaks prepared with skill by the chef here.
With calm eyes, Daniel opened the wine cork. Ironically, what he had chosen was an Auxey-Duresses from Domaine Leroy, where he himself had once worked.
As Daniel poured the wine into our glasses, he spoke.
“Those things you called ‘rhizosphere’ and ‘pinpoint’... To be honest, they gave me chills. I prided myself on having gone through everything under Madame Leroy at Domaine Leroy. When I learned biodynamique, biodynamic farming, I believed the idea that the energy of the cosmos and the earth dwelled in the grapes. But what you said today...”
He took a sip of wine and, for a long while, could not swallow it down. Only after some time did he continue.
“It was almost shocking. There’s still a lot of talk about Warren Winiarski joining Redwood, but now I completely understand. It’s unbelievable, but Elder Warren thinks he has something to learn from you. I studied at UC Davis too, but even there, I never heard of a concept like controlling the environment by deceiving the last few millimeters at the tip of a tree’s roots the way you do, Master. So I understand how shocked Elder Warren must have been.”
I quietly swirled my glass. The ruby-colored liquid flowed smoothly down the glass wall.
“Daniel, what you learned at Leroy must have been respect for terroir. And what you learned at Davis must have been efficiency in agriculture. All I did was combine the two. Because I respect it, I don’t pull out the trees. Because it has to be efficient, I give only what is needed, precisely where it’s needed.”
“No, that isn’t merely combining them.”
Daniel suddenly raised his head and stared straight at me. In his eyes was awe, along with a kind of intellectual shock.
“All my life, I believed grapevines grew by submitting to the fate of the land. I was taught that whether the land was bad or good, accepting that fate was the truth of terroir. But you, Master... you were designing a new fate for the trees. Even if limestone bedrock blocks them, even if the rootstock is wrong, you showed that with knowledge, those limits can be overcome. This is a shock that shakes the entire value system I’ve built over more than twenty years.”
He emptied his glass and smiled bitterly.
“Can I be honest? When Louis Garraud brought up revoking the classification earlier, I thought to myself, ‘Yes, this is the law of Bordeaux. We crossed a line we dared not overstep, so now we’re being punished.’ But you didn’t even blink as you refuted that law with science. Do you know how amazing that is?”
“Hmm...”
“You don’t seem to understand, but, Master, you’re bringing down an iron fortress built up by centuries of Bordeaux tradition with just a few drill holes and a few liters of German reagents. If, after one week, those saplings really turn green...”
“There’s no need to think too deeply about it. I’m only testing something that already existed in theory. If I’m wrong, then I’ll simply change direction.”
At my indifferent words, Daniel shook his head as if appalled.
---
A week had already passed.
During that time, Belle Époque was our own battlefield. Every dawn, I collected leaves from the saplings and analyzed the components of their sap. The concentrations of iron and manganese were moving upward by an extremely slight... but definite curve.
In truth, signs of a miracle had appeared on the fourth day. The pale yellow around the leaf veins had begun to change into a very faint light green. It was a sign that chlorophyll was being synthesized.
And then, on the morning of the fateful seventh day.
At the entrance to the farm, Louis Garraud and the committee members had gathered again, along with vineyard owners from nearby châteaux who had heard the news. Even André, Christian Moueix’s trusted subordinate, was watching the scene from a corner.
“Now, let us confirm it.”
Louis Garraud approached the saplings and could not continue speaking.
The Sauvignon Blanc saplings that had been yellow and looked ready to crumble just a week ago were nowhere to be seen. From the tips of their small thirty-centimeter stems, a deep emerald vitality was bursting forth.
“T-this is...”
“What do you think? Do you still believe that what I did damaged the identity of Saint-Émilion wine?”
Louis Garraud could not open his mouth at the sight of the saplings that had turned completely green.