After I decided to designate 5 of Belle Époque’s 15 hectares of Sémillon as a test cultivation zone for noble rot wine, Daniel sorted through the tangle in his head and treated us to a late lunch.
We enjoyed a brief moment of leisure over an elaborate lunch of perfectly grilled tenderloin steak with a Mediterranean salad, but we couldn’t afford to remain relaxed for long. I was planning to leave Bordeaux tomorrow, and before then, rather than spend time sightseeing, I needed to teach Daniel as much as I possibly could.
“Could you go get the digital nitrogen meter and the refractometer?”
“Huh? Oh, sure.”
We got back in the car and headed out to the field where the Sémillon was growing. Daniel, who still seemed to be organizing his thoughts, wore an awkward expression the moment we stepped outside.
“I understand it in theory, but... in Bordeaux, noble rot is an art of waiting, not something you design, isn’t it? If we cut off nitrogen starting today, the vines are going to suffer a significant amount of stress. Is there a way to handle that?”
There was a practitioner’s sharpness in Daniel’s question. I gently grasped the stem of a three-year-old Sémillon sapling and answered.
“Cutting off nitrogen isn’t handing the vine a death sentence. It’s instilling a sense of crisis. Daniel, look at the soil report. Until the nitrogen level, currently at 45 ppm, approaches zero, the vine will struggle desperately to survive. In that process, it will abandon the inefficient waste of resources involved in thickening the fruit skins. Only when the skins become as thin as paper will the noble rot fungus we spray be able to penetrate them at once.”
Warren, who had been touching the soil beside us, lent weight to my decision while adding a seasoned explanation for Daniel’s sake.
“Master is right. For now, a complete halt is the correct answer. You need to give the vines a strong shock at the beginning for their constitution to change. But Daniel, don’t be too frightened. Even if we stop the fertilizer, we can continue supplying moisture and trace amounts of magnesium through the nozzles we installed, can’t we? The essence of this alchemy is riding that razor-thin line where the vine seems like it might die, but doesn’t.”
Daniel nodded and took notes, and Warren smiled as he added more.
“Brian’s figures are accurate, but don’t push the vines too hard by trusting only the data. It’s fine if the color of the leaves grows paler, but if the leaf veins turn yellow, that’s a sign you’ve crossed the limit. When that happens, supply water mixed with a very small amount of magnesium through the nozzles. Just enough for the vine to think, ‘Ah, I won’t die after all.’”
Warren’s advice was an insight that could only belong to someone who had cultivated grapevines for decades. I nodded at his words and moved on to the next piece of equipment. It was the fine mist nozzles installed between the saplings.
“The key to these nozzles is particle size. Daniel, set the spray particles to under 20 microns. If the particles are too large, droplets will form and run down, and that will simply become poison that invites gray mold. But if you spray them as ultrafine particles, the mist will wrap around the entire grape berry as though coating it.”
“Twenty microns... Got it. Then when should I mix in the cultured fungal spores?”
“Starting eight weeks before harvest. On days when the morning low drops below 12 degrees Celsius, the system will activate automatically at four in the morning, and the spores mixed into the mist will infiltrate the tiny cracks in the grape skins. What you need to check then isn’t whether the nozzles are clogged, but the scent.”
When Daniel looked puzzled, Warren smiled benevolently and added an explanation.
“That’s right, Daniel. Once noble rot begins, the vineyard gives off a distinctive smell. It’s a subtle mixture of fresh moss and ripe apricot. If you smell sour vinegar instead, you need to turn on the fans immediately and bring the humidity below 40 percent. That’s a warning that it isn’t noble rot, but decay, that has begun.”
As expected, Warren was not simply explaining mechanical settings; he was awakening the sensory indicators a winemaker needed to possess. We went to the edge of the Sémillon section.
“Install the fans here, where there’s a bit of room. You’ll need quite a few.”
“Orchard Rite would be the right choice, I assume?”
“Yes. They’re the most powerful and quietest. Since the wind has to reach everywhere without blind spots, you’ll need six to eight units. Keep in mind that you have to form a Wind Grid, where the air currents cross each other and can blow away the moisture across the entire field within ten minutes.”
“Fans in Bordeaux... Everyone will be shocked out of their minds...”
Fans cost tens of thousands of euros each to install, and because they take the form of enormous towers that spoil the landscape, people in Bordeaux are reluctant to set them up. One might ask, “Then how do they deal with frost?” but the people of Bordeaux merely respond by lighting fires or praying.
I continued my explanation.
“The role of the fans isn’t simply to dry the moisture on the grapes. They also have to serve as heat exchangers. Around eleven in the morning, just before the sun reaches its peak, activate the fans. That will send the humid air near the ground upward and push the dry, warm air in the upper layers into the spaces between the grape clusters. At that point, the reflectors laid across the ground will reflect sunlight toward the lower parts of the grape berries, completing three-dimensional drying from above and below. Do you understand?”
“Huh? Y-yeah...”
“In natural Sauternes, you have to pray for the wind to blow. But you can think of us as creating wind when we need it. If this year’s test cultivation succeeds, you’ll be evaluated as a magician who handles the most expensive mist and wind in Bordeaux.”
At my words, Daniel looked around the vineyard with a flushed face.
“Then how do we proceed with the harvest? You can’t pick noble rot grapes all at once.”
“Of course we’ll use the ‘Trie,’ or selective picking method. But even there, we’ll differentiate ourselves.”
I took the small digital refractometer Daniel had brought earlier and spoke.
“Be sure to check with the device and pick only the berries with a sugar level of 35 Brix or higher and acidity maintained at pH 3.2 or lower. You don’t need to cover all five hectares in a single day. Hire twenty skilled workers and have them harvest only the chocolate-colored berries where noble rot has progressed perfectly, as if plucking them out with tweezers. You’ll probably have to go through each section five or six times.”
Warren, who had been listening, added.
“Master is right. But when deciding the harvest timing, look carefully at the condition of the grape skins as much as the refractometer. When noble rot reaches its peak, the berries turn a transparent brown, like gemstones, and when you press them lightly with your fingertips, they burst without resilience. That is the sign that the liquid gold is ready.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Afraid he might miss even the smallest detail, Daniel wrote down everything we said, one point after another.
We got back in the car and moved to the winery located beside the château’s main building. I pulled up a piece of equipment on Daniel’s iPad. It was a Vertical Hydraulic Press.
“We’re going to install this equipment here. If we order it now, it should probably be installed within a month, right?”
“Prob...ably?”
“Noble rot grapes have almost no moisture. If you press them with an ordinary cylindrical press, you won’t get juice so much as the bitterness from the skins. You need to use this vertical press here and apply pressure very slowly... over twelve hours or more. As if you were squeezing the essence out of each and every grape berry. The equipment salesperson will explain the exact operating method. Manage the first juice obtained that way, the free-run juice, separately. That will become the core of our wine.”
Daniel examined the press on the iPad in detail.
“Twelve hours... That’s going to require an incredible amount of patience. But the juice pressed this way will have such high sugar content that fermentation won’t be easy, will it?”
“That’s right. That’s why you should use Cryo yeast, which has strong viability even in high-sugar environments, rather than ordinary yeast. The fermentation temperature must also be fixed at 18 degrees. If it’s even a little higher, the aroma will escape, and if it’s lower, the fermentation will stop. Warren, what should we use for the oak barrels?”
At my question, Warren answered without the slightest hesitation.
“Hmm... There’s exactly one thing that comes to mind. Wouldn’t French Allier oak be good? To support the rich flavor of noble rot wine, it would be advantageous to use a slightly heavier toast than ordinary oak. It’ll have to sleep there for at least two years.”
Daniel now looked completely overwhelmed. He was writing down everything we told him for the time being, but it was probably because so much information was pouring in that he couldn’t keep his head straight. Still, it was certainly far better than blindly throwing himself at the problem with no idea what to do, so Daniel smiled in relief.
“Boss, Mr. Warren. Truly... thank you. Now it’s clear what I need to do.”
“Have confidence, Daniel. Behind you are the system I created and Warren’s experience. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of thing comes out of this year’s test cultivation in the fall.”
“I won’t disappoint you.”
I exchanged a firm handshake with Daniel. The rough calluses I felt on his palm gave me an inexplicable sense of trust.
Warren and I left Belle Époque’s estate behind and got back into the car.
“Brian, it really is an impressive plan. But what if, by any chance, the weather exceeds the limits of our system?”
At Warren’s worried question, I stared at the scenery outside the window and answered.
“Then we have to accept it. Isn’t that what farming is? You prepare as best as you can, but even so, you silently accept heaven’s judgment and prepare for the next year.”
“...I thought you would have made some other preparation. That’s unexpectedly surprising.”
“Haha, sir. I’m not God. I’m only human. In my position, I study a lot and prepare for various crisis situations, but I don’t think predicting and preparing beyond that is my job. I’m a farmer, after all.”
Warren burst into laughter as if he found it absurd.
“Hahaha! And here I thought you weren’t a farmer. If you call yourself a farmer, that’s something of a relief.”
Warren and I pleasantly organized our future schedule that way, stayed until the next morning, and then boarded a plane bound for Napa. I felt sorry to Warren that we still couldn’t take a private jet, but I showed him my ambition, saying I would definitely acquire one next year.
*
Leaving behind our splendid achievements in Bordeaux, we set foot in Napa County Airport, where the warm California sunlight greeted us. I thought that, at least when it came to weather, California truly was the best, but that good mood did not last long. As soon as we entered the arrivals hall, Leo, the intern winemaker who had been anxiously shifting from foot to foot, spotted us and ran over.
“Boss! Mr. Warren! You’re finally here. It’s chaos right now!”
Leo’s voice rang loudly through the airport lobby. Warren frowned and pressed down on his shoulder as if to calm him.
“Speak slowly, Leo. What happened?”
“Well... a very malicious rumor is spreading.”
The latest tablet Leo held out, an iPad, was packed with posts from the Napa Valley local community and environmental groups’ social media. Even the headlines were extremely provocative.
[Redwood’s Underground Empire, Is It Rotting Napa’s Lifeline?
[Wine Wastewater Hidden in the Bedrock, the Culprit Behind Groundwater Contamination]
The contents were even more outrageous. They claimed that the real reason Redwood was digging down to the unprecedented depth of four underground levels was because, in order to save on the cost of treating wastewater generated during large-scale winemaking, we intended to inject it directly into the deep bedrock and discharge it there.
“Who would say something this absurd...”
Warren let out a hollow laugh, but Leo’s expression was quite serious.
“It isn’t ending as a simple baseless rumor. An environmental group called the Napa Guardians’ Alliance has already started picketing in front of the construction site’s main gate. The biggest problem is the Water Board. Using this rumor as justification, they’ve notified us that they’ll be conducting a full inspection of the entire construction site. They’re even pressuring us to halt construction until the investigation results come out.”
“Illegal underground discharge of wastewater? What era’s conspiracy theory is this, the idea of drilling holes into bedrock and pushing pollutants into it?”
When I asked cynically, Leo added urgently.
“People aren’t interested in the technical truth. They’re just reacting to the fear that ‘no one knows what’s happening deep underground.’ Right now, even Chairman Stevens of the board is being pushed by public opinion and is avoiding our calls. Word is spreading that tomorrow morning’s meeting will effectively be a ‘notice to halt construction.’”
An incitement campaign claiming that Napa’s clean groundwater would be contaminated with winery waste. This was the most effective attack possible, one that touched the raw nerve of every winery and resident in Napa Valley. It was clear that someone had taken advantage of my absence to set fire to the most critical point.
“This... can’t be helped. There’s only one person I can think of to deal with the Water Board.”
Warren also shook his head, wearing an expression that said there was no other choice.
“I’m the same. We’ll have to call Harry.”
In the end, I decided to ask the Rainmaker for help.