By the time May finally arrived, Brentwood was awash in green and red. The cherry trees were laden with fruit all the way to the tips of their branches, and the mingled deep scarlet and purple hues were breathtaking even from afar.
Queenswood Growers’ first joint harvest began at Jim Ferguson’s farm. Naturally, Chloe, the head of the cooperative, had been there since early dawn.
With a radio clipped to her waist and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low, she looked every inch the farm owner, but today was a little different. One more radio channel than usual was open. It was the channel connecting all five farms at once.
“Uncle Jim’s farm, begin harvesting Block A. You have two coolers ready, right?”
“Ready.”
Jim’s voice, a little higher than usual, came through the radio.
“Uncle Ray’s farm, please check the ripeness in Block C again before noon today. I think they’re ripening faster than yesterday.”
“Got it. I’ll take a look.”
“Uncle Carl’s farm, I think you can start harvesting this afternoon. Have the workers assigned in advance this morning.”
“Okay.”
Short replies came back from each channel. Chloe lowered the radio and walked into the harvest site at Jim Ferguson’s farm.
It was on a different scale from directing the Harris Farm harvest on her own. Workers were scattered across five farms, and she had to coordinate the movement routes of three hydro coolers in real time. No matter how meticulously she had prepared the schedule, variables always arose once things began in the field. Block B on Jim’s farm had ripened two days earlier than expected, and one of the workers at Carl’s farm had fallen ill and dropped out, forcing them to adjust the manpower assignments in a hurry.
“Chloe, I think we’ll need to pull one cooler from Jim’s farm and send it over to Carl’s.”
Thomas, who had come out with her, spoke from beside her. Chloe swept her gaze over the site for a moment.
“Can we finish Uncle Jim’s Block A before noon?”
“We can. There are enough workers.”
“Then we’ll use both coolers here in the morning and move one to Uncle Carl’s farm in the afternoon.”
Thomas nodded at the swift instructions of the co-op chairwoman, who seemed far more decisive than her age would suggest. He was not a man of many words, but whenever Chloe made a judgment in the field, he quietly supported her from the side, offering hints from the eyes of a farmer with decades of experience.
By afternoon, Ray pressed his radio.
“Chloe, I think we can pick our Block C now. The color’s just right.”
“Understood. Send the workers in.”
Some of the initial awkwardness had faded from Ray’s voice. Chloe noticed it and smiled.
As the sun began to dip, the first round of hydrocooling was completed. Core temperature: two degrees. Chloe placed her hand on one of the cooled boxes. The cold, firm sensation, no different from fruit just picked from the tree, came vividly through her palm.
“It’s done.”
Chloe murmured softly with a faint smile.
The harvested cherries were gathered at Harris Farm, and the hydrocooling facility ran at full capacity. With the harvests from all five farms arriving at once, it was far busier than usual, but Chloe stood in front of the equipment and checked the cooling time and temperature box by box. The MAP packaging line ran alongside it. Each box was covered with special film, then sealed after the oxygen concentration was lowered.
The finished boxes began to be loaded in rows onto refrigerated trucks. Three trucks stood side by side in the front yard of Harris Farm.
Thomas watched the scene with his arms crossed.
“So our cherries are going to Japan now.”
There was a strange heat in his voice. It might have been emotion, or it might have been relief.
Perhaps feeling the same thing, Ray looked at the boxes being loaded onto the trucks and said,
“Honestly, it still doesn’t feel real.”
At the subtle emotion between the two men, Chloe smiled and said,
“But it’ll feel real soon enough, once Manager Sato contacts us.”
---
Narita Airport Cargo Terminal.
Sato Takeshi personally opened the boxes that had arrived. When he carefully peeled back the MAP film, dark scarlet cherries revealed themselves. There was no browning on the stems, and the color was uniform. It was hard to believe two days had passed since they had been harvested.
He picked up one cherry. It was firm, with no pitting. When he put the whole cherry in his mouth, a satisfied smile spread across his face before he knew it.
Crunch.
Juice burst from the thin skin and wrapped around his tongue. It did not have the explosive sweetness of Royal Tioga, but the refreshing, well-balanced sweetness unique to Bing cherries was vividly alive. There was none of the faint stale flavor usually found in Bing cherries shipped directly by air. It was freshness no different from fruit just picked.
Sato said to the employee standing beside him,
“Contact the Matsuya buyer. I think this year’s Bing cherries can be placed right alongside the Royal Tioga.”
The employee nodded and took out his phone. Sato picked up another cherry. Then he murmured as if to himself,
“Queenswood Growers, huh…”
A new name had been born in Brentwood. And a considerably reliable brand at that.
---
All the farms completed their harvest and shipping three evenings later.
Chloe sat alone in the Harris Farm office. The co-op members had all returned to their homes, and on the table lay the documents calculating the profits from this harvest. The total combined revenue from the five farms. Chloe skimmed the number once, then closed the documents.
With a light sigh, she picked up her phone and called Brian.
“It’s all over now.”
“How was it?”
“It went better than I thought. There was some confusion since it was our first time, but everyone kept pace.”
“What about the members?”
“They were all proud. Uncle Thomas didn’t say anything, but while he was watching the trucks being loaded, his expression said it all.”
She heard Brian chuckle quietly over the receiver.
“By the way, Brian.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I can keep being the head of the co-op?”
“Huh? Why all of a sudden? Is it hard?”
Chloe frowned slightly and threw herself onto the sofa. Through the window, she could see the trees now emptied after the harvest.
“It’s not that it’s hard… The weight of responsibility is completely different. It isn’t the same as just having to do well on my own farm. Those people trusted me and followed me, but if I make the wrong judgment, they’ll suffer too. I’m proud, but it feels like such a burden.”
“Chloe, if you can feel that weight, it means you’re doing well.”
“What do you mean?”
“The most dangerous people are the ones who don’t feel that weight. It means they have no sense of responsibility.”
Chloe, rolling around on the sofa, let out a small laugh.
“You’re coming in two days, right?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you then.”
“Okay. I want to eat something delicious.”
“Sure. You finished something difficult, so let’s go out and have fun.”
They chatted lightly and meaninglessly for a while before hanging up.
Chloe set her phone down on the table and looked around the office for a moment. When she had first inherited this farm, she had never imagined this office would be used like this. That it would become a place with a co-op meeting table, piled with harvest documents from five farms.
She sprang to her feet, soon shook off the heavy thoughts, and turned off the office lights. For now, she decided she would only worry about what to wear and what to eat on her date with Brian in two days.
Napa Valley, Redwood Winery.
May was the season when cherries were shipped out, but in the vineyards, life was swelling into its freshest season. The grapevines, dense with new shoots, were being dyed gold by the evening sun, and I sat on the terrace, gazing at the scenery.
I had a glass of Astra Veil in my hand, but I was simply holding it without taking even a sip.
“Master, it seems you’ve been worrying a lot about Castello lately.”
Warren said as he sat down in the chair beside me. In his hand was a glass of vin chaud. He had said he felt like he was coming down with a cold and was cutting back on alcohol.
“How did you know?”
“You have a habit when you’re thinking. You just hold your wineglass without drinking from it.”
I looked down at my hand. I really had not taken a single sip while holding the glass.
“Ah… You’re right.”
“I’ve been watching you for a long time.”
Warren looked out over the vineyard and continued.
“Have you checked the condition of Castello’s base wine?”
“Yes. I opened all the tanks and barrels last week.”
When I acquired Castello Winery, there had been conditions. The existing wine bottled by the Higgins father and son would be disposed of by them before they left. And the 2009 vintage base wine remaining in the tanks and oak barrels was included in the acquisition. Cabernet Sauvignon base wine from the To Kalon terroir.
“How was it?”
“Better than I expected. Since the To Kalon terroir is so outstanding, the quality of the base wine itself isn’t bad. The fruit aroma is rich, and the tannin structure is solid. With time, I think it could become a very good wine.”
“Then your concern is what to make with it, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. It’s something I’d been thinking about since the moment I acquired Castello Winery. There’s the option of blending some of it into Astra Veil or Aether, or of making a new wine under the Castello name…”
“What about the first option?”
“For now, since it means incorporating the To Kalon base wine into the existing lineup, it’s the safest choice. It could help raise Astra Veil’s quality another level. But… if I do that, To Kalon disappears. It’s base wine from one of Napa’s finest terroirs, but if it gets buried inside Astra Veil, I feel like the meaning of that terroir will be lost.”
“Even so, won’t you need Castello’s base wine to make Astra Veil?”
Originally, the Cabernet Sauvignon at the heart of Astra Veil came from Redwood’s grapes. Ironwood’s Cab Sauv was also included, but Redwood had to hold the center. However, since Redwood had completely replanted its vineyards, there was no avoiding a shortage of base wine from this year’s vintage for next year’s Astra Veil.
“That’s true. So I do plan to send some of it into Astra Veil. I just don’t know how much.”
“Castello’s estate is much larger than Redwood’s, so why not use at least twenty thousand liters or so of To Kalon grapes?”
“Twenty thousand liters…”
Twenty thousand liters of To Kalon grape base wine had considerable value, and with that much, even though Redwood’s vineyard had disappeared, the volume of Astra Veil to be shipped at the end of this year would not change significantly.
“All right. I’ll do that.”
“Then what else are you thinking about?”
“Making a new cult wine under the Castello name.”
“Skipping over Aether?”
“I thought about it, and Castello’s grapes and Silver Oak’s grapes are clearly different. The natural To Kalon grape base wine definitely has a more explosive fruit aroma. On the other hand, Silver Oak’s grape base wine has a firmer structure. More Bordeaux-like, should I say?”
“You’re worried that if Castello’s explosive fruit aroma goes into Aether, it might disrupt the structure.”
“That’s right.”
“Then you simply need to make a new wine. Of course, the problem is that you haven’t decided on that direction yet.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. I still don’t know what to do or how to do it. It’s like there’s nothing that flashes through my mind.”
Warren nodded, then asked with a face full of curiosity,
“Master, may I ask you one thing?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you acquire Castello?”
I thought for a moment.
“The To Kalon terroir. It’s one of the oldest and finest vineyards even in Napa. I thought I could make something meaningful there.”
“Was that in order to make one more wine on the level of Astra Veil?”
“No. Astra Veil already exists. I didn’t acquire it to make a copy of Astra Veil from To Kalon.”
“Then what was it for?”
I turned that question over in my mind. I recalled the moment I first decided to acquire Castello. What I had felt when I first saw the winery run by the Higgins father and son.
The soil of To Kalon. The potential held by that soil.
If Astra Veil was a wine born from the terroir at the foot of Redwood’s mountains, then Castello had to be a wine born from an entirely different land called To Kalon. Even with the same Cabernet Sauvignon, different soil makes a different wine. But that alone was not enough. It needed something beyond the mere fact that the land was different.
“I don’t have an answer yet.”
I spoke honestly. Warren laughed lightly when he heard that.
“That’s fortunate.”
“Fortunate?”
“If an answer comes too quickly, you should doubt it instead. What kind of wine Castello should become is something that ought to emerge only after you understand that land well enough.”
It was an extremely fundamental statement, but it differed from what I had originally been thinking. I had been trying to choose a direction by looking at the base wine itself, whereas he was saying I should choose the direction only after understanding the land.
But after listening to Warren, I realized there was something I had missed.
“Now that I think about it, since acquiring Castello Winery, I don’t think I’ve been there more than a few times.”
“That’s true. You entrusted everything to the head winemaker there.”
“Hmm… All right. I know what I need to do.”
I rose to my feet.
“You’re going now?”
“There’s no reason not to.”
“I’ll go with you. It’s boring alone.”
And so, together with Warren, who was pleased that another exciting thing had appeared, I headed for Castello Winery. Hoping to find something I had not yet found.