The golden ratio of “95:3:2” confirmed through bench tasting was now ready to move beyond a 1,000 ml beaker and into a massive stainless-steel tank with a capacity of ten thousand liters.
Waiting there were 7,300 liters of base wine pressed from roughly thirteen tons of grapes from Silver Oak.
“The feed line to the main tank has been secured. Oxygen levels are below 0.2 ppm, and nitrogen displacement is complete.”
At the report from the head winemaker, I nodded. The thing to guard against most in large-scale blending was oxidation. Every pipeline the liquid would pass through had been filled with nitrogen, cutting off contact with oxygen at the source.
“Begin injecting the prepared 7,300 liters of Cabernet Sauvignon first.”
When the heavy industrial pump started up, the thick four-inch hose began to writhe and shudder. The vibration of the wine pouring in through the valve at the bottom of the tank traveled up through the soles of my feet. I fixed a sharp stare on the digital numbers of the flow meter. Not even a single liter of error could be allowed.
Next went in 230 liters of Petit Verdot. Once that firm liquid, which would give the wine its structure, entered the tank, the wine inside would surely begin forming subtle layers due to differences in specific gravity.
“Now for the last one. Argentine Malbec, 154 liters—add it!”
The Malbec base wine, dark as black ink, poured down like a waterfall through a separate upper inlet. In an ordinary winery, this was where they would simply stir it with a giant paddle or blow in air, but I chose a different method.
“We’ll begin pumping over. Fix the flow rate at 300 liters per minute, draw from the bottom, spray it back in from the top, and repeat the circulation five times in total.”
The way to resolve the subtle layering caused by the Petit Verdot and Malbec was circulation through the piping. To be precise, wine drawn from the bottom valve was compressed and sprayed into the top of the tank to create a vortex. Only then would the wine come into contact with oxygen and breathe, and only then would the molecules of the Cab, Petit Verdot, and Malbec finally recognize one another and begin to intertwine.
The turbulence formed at the proper speed forcibly pushed the anthocyanin particles of the Malbec through the framework of the Petit Verdot and into the spaces between the long tannin chains of the 7,300 liters of Cabernet Sauvignon. The more frequent the physical collisions became, the more dramatically the speed of chemical bonding—that is, polymerization—increased.
“Check the temperature!”
Warren shouted in a tense voice.
“Currently holding at 14.5 degrees. It rose 0.5 degrees due to friction heat from the pump, but the cooling water in the jacket is responding immediately.”
Blending was also a thermodynamic process. Even the minute friction heat generated as the liquids mixed had to be controlled. If the temperature jumped by even one degree, there was a risk that esters, the wine’s delicate aromatic compounds, would volatilize.
Two hours later, the circulation pump stopped. The 7,684 liters inside the tank had now been reborn, no longer separate base wines but a single organic lifeform. I opened the sampling tap at the top of the tank and filled a small glass with the liquid.
Wine immediately after blending usually fell into a state of shock, its flavors unsettled and floating apart. But the sensation on the tip of my tongue was far more stable than expected. The softness of the Malbec embraced the sharp edge of the Cab, spreading the flavor evenly throughout the mouth.
“How is it, Master?”
Warren asked, swallowing dryly. I placed a hand on the cold metal of the tank’s outer wall and answered quietly.
“It’s a success. The molecules have found their places with one another. All that remains now is for time to bind them completely into one.”
“So it should.”
Warren, nodding in satisfaction, signaled to the workers beside him.
“Good. Let’s move it to barrels now. The cellar temperature has been set.”
As the workers tried to connect the hose, I lightly raised a hand to stop them.
“Wait a moment. The dissolved oxygen level is too high to move it right away. Because of the Venturi effect, 0.3 ppm more has dissolved into it than expected.”
The Venturi effect referred to the phenomenon in which a fluid’s velocity increased when it passed through a narrow section of pipe, while its pressure conversely decreased. The same phenomenon occurred when moving wine with a pump.
If the hose connection was even slightly loose, or when the wine passed through a narrow gap in a valve, the flow velocity increased sharply. At that moment, because of the lowered pressure, outside air was forcibly drawn into the wine, causing excess oxygen to dissolve into it.
Warren narrowed his eyes and turned to look at me.
“I know, Master. Wine is bound to be unsettled immediately after blending. But at this scale, isn’t that the kind of amount that would naturally dissipate during transfer? I think you’re being too sensitive.”
A master like Warren could not possibly be ignorant of things like post-blending stabilization or the need for oak aging. That was why, from experience, he must have judged this minute oxygen level to be within an acceptable range. But I stubbornly pointed at the number on the monitor.
“You’re right, sir. Under ordinary circumstances, it wouldn’t be a problem. But what we’ll be using is low-temperature toasted American oak.
Its pores are denser than French oak, so its initial oxygen consumption rate is low. If we put it in like this, the oxidative bonding that should appear five years after bottling may be completed in the barrel in only three months. Forty-eight hours. We’ll put it through low-temperature settling for exactly forty-eight hours.”
Warren, wearing a dumbfounded expression, stared into my eyes for a moment before soon laughing as if conceding and waving his hand.
“Hah, good grief. You want to stop the process over 0.3 ppm? Are you making wine, or assembling semiconductors?”
“I think they’re similar. Precision is life.”
“Fine, I understand. That dreadful fastidiousness of yours is what will turn this wine into Aether. Good. Let’s gather again in two days. But you said you’re using American oak?”
It was clearly an unexpected step.
“That’s right. I’m trying to make a properly American wine.”
The nobles of Bordeaux often disparaged American oak as vulgar. While the French oak they used gave off subtle cedar and spice aromas, American oak exuded overt vanilla and sweet coconut aromas from lactones. But before my regression, I had learned one fact proven in wood chemistry research.
“You’re making an American wine with American oak? Explain in detail.”
I led Warren out of the aging room as I spoke.
“I’m going to use American oak barrels, but apply an ultra-low-temperature, long-duration toasting technique so they don’t give off the usual impression of American oak.”
“Ultra-low-temperature?”
“Yes. Below 150 degrees Celsius, for three times longer than ordinary toasting, slowly cooking them all the way through.”
“Ah! Don’t tell me that’s why you’ve been going back and forth between Brentwood and Redwood all this time, gathering people in the backyard and wrestling with oak barrels. You had all sorts of equipment there too.”
“Haha, that’s right. If you do it this way, the lactone compounds that produce coconut aroma are suppressed, while the hemicellulose inside the wood slowly decomposes, maximizing that cool graphite and pencil-lead minerality you only sense in top-class Bordeaux wines.”
“Is that really true?”
“I’ll show you.”
I grabbed one of the empty oak barrels placed outside Redwood and showed it to him.
“These are the ones I worked on myself.”
Of course, I had not done the work alone. Experts had worked with me according to my instructions.
Warren stuck his head into the oak barrel and sniffed.
“Oh, this is no ordinary thing. It’s definitely American oak, but... at the end of the aroma, there’s a sharp metallic coolness. Like a well-honed blade.”
“Right? In any case, if the softness of the Malbec in Aether wine soothes the sharpness of the Cab, this specially toasted American oak will play the role of imprisoning the two inside a single solid fortress. You could say a classic with overwhelming power, different from French-style elegance, will be born.”
This was an explanation tailored to Warren, a winemaker who valued intuition. If I were to explain it from my perspective as a doctor of agricultural science, I would say that if Bordeaux’s elegance relied on delicate oxidation, then we were using the high density of American oak to induce the polymerization of tannins into a firmer, denser structure.
“Incredible.”
Warren nodded and waved his hand as if telling me to do as I pleased.
“Good. Do it that way. I’ll spend the next two days analyzing these barrels you’ve made, Master.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“Understanding, my foot... Just tell me how you toasted these barrels.”
I took hold of the oak barrel, tilted it slightly, and pointed inside.
“The mistake people usually make when toasting American oak is charring only the surface black to induce caramelization, sweetness. But I used a deep-heat penetration method. At a low temperature, I slowly broke down the lignin structure in the wood cell walls.”
With my gloved hand, I stroked the inside of the oak barrel. It was far smoother than an ordinary oak barrel, while the edges were finely carbonized.
“Try touching it.”
“Hmm... It certainly feels different.”
“I drove off the lactones at 170 degrees for four hours to remove the coconut aroma. Then, for the final minute, I flash-carbonized the surface at a high temperature of 230 degrees to form a carbon layer. This thin layer of carbon filters impurities from the wine and draws out the lignin-decomposition compounds hidden deep inside the wood.”
“......?”
At my explanation, Warren’s expression held a mixture of surprise and bewilderment. It was understandable. In this period, most oak toasting was done by experts at cooperages relying on their instincts. Even if he knew the concept of toasting oak by controlling precise temperatures and times, he likely had not expected anyone to actually implement it.
“So, to put it simply, I preserved the strong framework of American oak while selectively removing only its unpleasant aromatic compounds and replacing them with the refined flavor of Bordeaux.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I’ll assign you one of the staff members who toasted the oak with me, so you can learn the detailed method from them.”
“Thank you.”
Even though he was over seventy, he could not hide the excited look on his face at the prospect of learning something new.
---
Castello Winery in Napa Valley. Its splendid underground aging cellar gave off an atmosphere entirely different from Redwood’s. Between stainless-steel facilities equipped with cutting-edge temperature control systems and digital pressure sensors, the barrels Joseph Higgins had prepared so ambitiously stood lined up in rows.
“So today is finally the day.”
Joseph’s son, Matthew Higgins, approached the chief winemaker, Marcus, with a face full of anticipation. The cryogenic vacuum concentration process carried out last winter at Marcus’s suggestion had been perfect. By precisely freezing and removing only the water at subzero temperatures, this wine now had anthocyanin and tannin concentrations more than 1.5 times higher than ordinary wine.
“Are the final checks for each barrel complete?”
Instead of answering, Marcus inserted a wine thief, a glass tasting pipette, deep into the oak barrel. A thick liquid, closer to black than purple, was drawn up.
“As of now, including this barrel number 117, the top five percent of the lot that finished concentration has been back in oak for exactly four months.”
At the end of last year, the base wines from which water had been forcibly stripped inside the vacuum chamber had remained in a state of shock for some time because of that impact. Joseph had refilled the most expensive new French oak barrels with these concentrates and watched them with bated breath.
“Right after concentration, the balance was a mess, but as they went through oak aging again, the tannins and alcohol have been settling into place. By the numbers, this is unprecedented, Matthew. But... about this barrel 117.”
With a moved expression, Matthew swirled his glass and smelled the aroma. Explosive blackberry and intense oak flavors pierced his nose. But on the other side, Marcus, who had also set down his glass, had a faint crease between his brows.
“The color is good, and the concentration is perfect. But even after four months of re-aging, the sensation on the tip of the tongue is... a little static, shall we say? Instead of the flavor spreading through the mouth, it feels as though it’s set in place like gelatin. It’s an extremely subtle difference, so ordinary people would never notice it.”
Matthew flinched and personally took the glass, holding a mouthful. But soon he spoke with an expression that said Marcus was being absurd.
“What are you talking about, Marcus? Look at this overwhelming density. This isn’t static—it’s overflowing with power. It’s become more solid inside the oak barrel.”
In truth, Marcus himself was uncertain. He wondered if perhaps it was so good that it had simply given him an ominous feeling.
Matthew grasped Marcus by the shoulder and said,
“The re-aging period has been sufficient. Once June comes, we’ll begin preparing for release, and with this level of destructive power, the market will be turned upside down. Don’t suspect the barrels based on imperfect logic. You did well.”
“You’re right. Compared to what we were worried about, it came out extremely well.”
“We’re going to become the best.”
After the confident Matthew left the aging cellar, Marcus remained alone and looked down once more at the sample glass from barrel number 117. The legs of the wine running down the wall of the glass were descending very, very slowly.