The meeting room of the Napa County Planning Commission. It had taken only two weeks from Arthur’s informal preliminary meeting with the county planning officials to the public hearing.
With the meeting about to begin, Arthur Vanderbilt spoke beside me in a calm yet courteous voice.
“I’m saying this just in case, but you shouldn’t expect everything to go smoothly.”
“I know. I’ve had experience running into a lot of opposition back when we drilled a well at Redwood.”
“Then you understand well enough. If you say you want to tunnel into a mountain and give the simple reason of ‘because we want to make a lot of wine,’ the environmental agency will never issue a permit. They’ll see the act of boring into a mountain itself as environmental destruction. Don’t forget that Napa Valley is already suffering from extreme fatigue over reckless development, and that it’s under the fierce scrutiny of environmental groups.”
“Yes. But it’s not as if there’s no way, right?”
“That’s true as well. Bureaucrats fear new things. But they’re also afraid of being branded as the people who failed to recognize corporate innovation and held it back. We’ll have to stake the fight on that, but I’m telling you to keep in mind that things may not go as easily as we’d like.”
“I understand.”
Arthur Vanderbilt smoothed his neatly groomed silver hair and lightly tapped a bundle of documents into order. What he held in his hand was a draft environmental impact assessment under the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA. Ordinarily, that monstrous document would take at least a year just to prepare and another year to review, but Arthur had produced it in just two weeks as a “Negative Declaration”—in other words, an application requesting exemption from detailed investigation on the grounds that there would be little to no environmental impact.
The heavy door to the hearing room opened, and David Miller, the chief inspector of the county environmental department, adjusted his glasses and spoke.
“Arthur, are you out of your mind? This is an excavation on the scale of four underground floors. It sounds less like you’re building a wine cave and more like you’re digging a mine. Can you guarantee you won’t disturb the underground water veins?”
Arthur, who had already anticipated the question, smiled faintly as if he had been waiting for it.
“David, you’re still thinking in terms of twentieth-century excavation methods. The method Brian Choi has proposed is not only ‘vibration-free precision tunneling,’ it’s an underground strategy that won’t disturb even one percent of the vegetation on the surface. Take a look at this data. Compared to constructing an aboveground building, the energy used is reduced by ninety percent. The moment you stamp this document, Napa County becomes the pioneering administrative body that gave birth to the most environmentally friendly winery in America.”
“Ninety percent? Does that even make sense?”
I answered that question.
“An aboveground warehouse exposed beneath California’s hot sun has to run a massive electric chiller at full capacity twenty-four hours a day to maintain an indoor temperature of 59°F, or 15°C. It’s like turning on an air conditioner inside an uninsulated tent in the middle of summer.”
“And this is different?”
“Yes. Ten meters below the surface, whether it’s 104°F, or 40°C, outside, or 32°F, or 0°C, the temperature remains between 13 and 15°C all year round. In other words, without any mechanical cooling equipment, the earth’s natural coolness has already brought it to the target temperature. The loop I intend to install will efficiently circulate that natural coolness, and only fine-tuning pumps will need to run, so energy use will be drastically reduced.”
David Miller nodded, then turned his gaze back to Arthur.
“But is there a way to solve the groundwater issue?”
“For that, we have an even more perfect alternative. Redwood is already using a deep-water well more than three hundred meters underground. That’s an entirely different stratum from the shallow groundwater at the fourth underground floor we’ll be digging into, roughly fifteen meters down. If anything, the geothermal loop pipes we install will act as ‘insulation,’ keeping the temperature of the shallow groundwater stable. In other words, there will be no opportunity for the groundwater to be contaminated.”
“Hmm… I understand for now.”
That was how the first review came to a close, but that did not mean it was over. In the afternoon, an emergency public hearing convened by Elena Russo, head of the Napa Preservation Alliance, was held.
Arthur glanced at her and said quietly to me.
“This is where it matters. She’s the most difficult environmental activist in Napa. If she sees even the slightest sign of nature being disturbed, she’s the type to file for a court injunction to halt construction.”
“She sounds formidable.”
“It would be more accurate to say her influence is formidable.”
A short while later, she fixed Arthur with a gleaming gaze and spoke.
“Arthur Vanderbilt, you certainly dream big. To attempt something this enormous without hesitation… are you determined to turn Napa Valley into a construction site? If you dig down four underground floors, the soil’s microbial ecosystem will obviously be destroyed.”
A tense atmosphere spread through the room at Elena’s sharp attack. At Arthur’s glance, I stepped directly up to the microphone.
“First, let me ask you something. Have you considered the adverse effects the wastewater currently discharged by Napa’s wineries has on the soil?”
“That is within regulatory limits…”
“I intend to install a ‘Closed Loop purification system’ in this underground winery that is ten times stricter than those regulations. We will also use a special slurry wall method so that not even a single particle of rock powder produced during excavation leaks outside. Above all, this system will save ninety percent of its energy while being completely sealed off from the outside. Would you prefer massive cooling units spewing noise and heat above the Napa land you love, or an empire that quietly coexists with nature beneath the earth?”
The methods mentioned here were, of course, the result of the architectural firm that had developed these plans proposing the latest techniques.
“Besides, you pointed out that I dream big, but it’s not as if our Redwood is the first winery like this, is it? There is a very clear precedent in Palmaz Vineyards.”
Napa Valley’s Palmaz Vineyards is a fortress-like winery created by vertically excavating the interior of a mountain to a height of eighteen stories, roughly fifty meters. It makes wine using a method most similar to the “gravity-flow system” I had made the core of my proposal, and with its massive underground dome structure, it feels less like a winery and more like an advanced laboratory. In other words, it is exactly the kind of winery Julian Boyd would hate.
The representative winery entirely buried beneath a hillside, with only vineyards visible from the surface, is Antinori nel Chianti Classico in Italy. It uses terracotta and clay to maintain the natural coolness underground and prevents condensation through an elaborate ventilation system. It is said to have cost over one hundred million dollars just to build that winery.
“Palmaz began construction in the 1990s.”
“That still means we are not the first. And we are using methods far superior to Palmaz, methods that are not destructive to nature.”
Faced with that perfect response, she closed her mouth. From the perspective of an environmental group, if nothing at all emerged to the outside, the grounds for opposition became flimsy. Seizing that opening, Arthur presented Elena with an offer she could not refuse.
“Elena, Brian has decided to contribute funds for a large-scale planting project in a nearby national forest to offset all carbon emissions generated by this construction. The construction will proceed quietly underground, and aboveground, a new forest will arise. If you oppose this, people will think you hate not the harm to the environment, but development itself.”
Elena looked resentful, but she kept her mouth shut. After all, the combination of a fund to create a forest and the sealed nature of the underground facility was the most perfect exit route for environmentalists.
“Today went well, but it still isn’t over. A meeting with the State Water Resources Control Board is scheduled next. If we can persuade the board members with the unique construction method Mr. Brian Choi has prepared, I believe it will be entirely possible. It will take about two weeks, so I’ll see you then.”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
After safely getting through the first public hearing, I could not rest comfortably at Redwood Winery. That was because, following last year, the En Primeur season had arrived once again.
This year, I visited the place together with Warren. Chloe was disappointed, but April was the hectic period just before the cherry harvest, so she could not come with us.
Warren and I were walking quietly through the noisy crowd. Perhaps because of the article Julian Boyd had written, the gazes of several château staff who recognized us held a strange mixture of wariness and curiosity.
Then a middle-aged gentleman, impeccably dressed in a silver suit, blocked our path.
“Excuse me. Are you President Brian Choi and Mr. Warren Winiarski?”
It was English tinged with a refined French accent. On his chest, a pin engraved with the crest of Château Margaux glittered.
“That’s right. And you are?”
“Madame Corinne Mentzelopoulos has cordially invited the two of you. She is waiting for you now at Château Margaux.”
Warren and I exchanged glances. Even amid this bustling En Primeur venue, the fact that the mistress of Château Margaux—the “Queen of Wines,” praised as the most elegant and noble among the five great châteaux of Bordeaux—had personally summoned us was no ordinary matter.
There was no reason to refuse.
“We don’t have to go immediately, do we? We only just arrived…”
The man flinched slightly. Here in Bordeaux, being told to wait when the Queen of Wines had called might have sounded absurd. But he did not show any agitation, and a gentle smile remained on his lips.
“Of course.”
“Hmm… how about in two hours?”
“I will be waiting in front of the exhibition hall.”
After making that arrangement, we leisurely resumed experiencing this year’s young Bordeaux wines. Only after the promised two hours had passed did we get into the car Corinne had prepared.
The avenue of plane trees leading to the main gate of Château Margaux was exceedingly beautiful. When we arrived before the neoclassical main building reminiscent of a Greek temple, Corinne Mentzelopoulos came down to the terrace with an elegant smile to greet us.
“So I meet Napa Valley’s hottest sun and wisest great tree again in Bordeaux.”
The atmosphere today was worlds apart from when we had met last year at En Primeur after being invited by Christian Moueix. As if she had become an entirely different person, she took my hand and greeted me gently. Then she looked at Warren with deep respect in her eyes.
“Warren, many in Bordeaux were astonished by your decision. The news that, at your age, you joined Redwood in order to learn resonated deeply with us. It is the humility only a truly great master can show.”
She greeted us as if she had never seen us last year. I did not know whether to call it shamelessness or something else, but there was not the slightest hesitation on her face, making it feel almost natural instead.
“Hoho, Madame. Master Brian has something about him that makes age nothing more than a number. Every day feels new even to me.”
At Warren’s answer, Corinne looked at me with interest and guided us inside. On the table, alongside freshly baked brioche, stood wine that had already been decanted.
“Please don’t be too disappointed about the result of the Nobel banquet wine selection at the end of last year. The fact that our Bordeaux Alliance’s ‘Unity’ was chosen was more a courtesy paid to tradition and justification than a matter of ability. In truth, many people, myself included, were unable to speak for quite some time after drinking your ‘Ether.’”
She dismissed Unity’s victory as if it were an insignificant political result and instead praised Ether’s quality.
In truth, anyone who knew the reality of that wager would say this was only natural, but even I was slightly surprised that such words had come from the mouth of Corinne, the owner of Château Margaux. The very fact that this proud aristocrat of Bordeaux was lowering herself was shocking.
But I made no point of showing it. I accepted it as if it were only natural, and for a moment, a peculiar light appeared in her eyes before she continued the ordinary conversation as if nothing had happened.
When the mood had fully ripened, Corinne set down her glass and brought up the main subject.
“Brian, I heard you are building a vast fortress beneath Redwood right now. Just hearing the rumors was enough for me to understand how far your ambition reaches.”
“Some preparation was necessary. If I want to contain a bigger dream, I have to change the vessel first.”
“That’s true. Which is why I’d like to make a proposal. How about Château Margaux and Redwood begin regular exchanges? Mutual visits between our technical teams, of course, and also sharing the centuries of blending data we possess with the astonishing precision agriculture data you have.”
Her eyes were serious.
“Tradition becomes a specimen if it never meets innovation, and innovation becomes lightweight if it does not know the weight of tradition. If Redwood’s science is added to Margaux’s elegance, we will be able to write a new history of wine. What do you think? Shall we create a ‘true Unity’ between Bordeaux and Napa?”
Only then did I realize why she had taken such a humble attitude.
“Ah… but our precision agriculture data is like the heart of our winery. No matter how attractive the partner, it would be difficult to accept a proposal to share that core information. But how about a different kind of collaboration?”
“A different kind?”