Two days later, Redwood Farm.
By now, commuting to the farm as soon as I opened my eyes had become my routine, so I came out to the farm at sunrise and was checking the condition of the grapevines with Armando.
Since graduation, Armando had been coming to work at our farm every day from the crack of dawn, and because I was paying him more than other farms did, he was actually grateful.
It wasn’t bad for me, either. I hadn’t really known it until now, but the more I dealt with him, the more I realized Armando was a kid with a passion for farming. No, to be more precise, I could faintly see that he wanted to become someone useful in society. It seemed to have manifested as farming.
“The leaves are this fresh… so what on earth is causing that much damage?”
Walking between the rows of vines, Armando touched the clusters of leaves as if entranced. I bent down and touched the soil as I answered.
“The scariest ones are the ones you can barely see. For example, grape phylloxera. They hide underground and gnaw at the roots. From above, the vine looks fine, but once the roots are damaged, it can’t absorb water or nutrients, and in the end it withers.”
“Then can’t you just catch them? Spray some kind of pesticide or something?”
“No. You can’t get rid of them with chemicals. They already wiped out European vineyards once in the nineteenth century. That’s why everyone uses resistant rootstock now. In simple terms, you use American grapevines with roots that are resistant to the pest, and then graft the variety you want on top. You block them starting from the roots.”
Armando looked down at the dirt beneath his feet, startled.
“It starts underground… That’s scary.”
I then lifted up a cluster of grapes from the vine right beside us, where the berries were just starting to take shape and were about the size of small peas.
“There are visible ones, too. This one is called the European Grapevine Moth, Lobesia botrana. The larvae burrow into the grapes and eat everything inside. Mold grows on the damaged berries, and before harvest, entire clusters can rot away.”
“That’s seriously harmful, huh? Then how do you stop those?”
“There’s a way. If you hang pheromone traps throughout the vineyard, the males can’t find the females and can’t reproduce. It’s called ‘mating disruption.’”
“Ooh—sounds impressive just from the name.”
“Right. And when the larvae have just hatched, you can use microbial agents like Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis—a natural microbial insecticide.”
“Bt? What’s that?”
“It’s a bacterium that produces protein toxins only for certain pests. It’s completely harmless to people, animals, and plants.”
“Then do you just spray it all over the ground?”
“No. You spray it on places like the leaves, and the Bt spores stick there. Then, when the moth larvae eat the leaves, the toxin activates inside their gut and paralyzes their digestive function. Then they can’t eat and starve to death. The end. How’s that? Pretty amazing, right?”
When I said they starved to death, I drew a finger across my throat. Armando’s mouth fell open.
“You’re really like a teacher. There’s nothing you don’t know.”
“I have to know everything if I’m going to run a farm this big. Farming is war. A war fought with knowledge instead of swords. If you prepare properly, you can prevent the damage.”
No matter how much I told stories like this to the workers, they usually just gave things a cursory glance and moved on, so I had stopped after trying once or twice. But Armando was earnest and had a lot of curiosity about farming, so I was teaching him.
Just then, Mom called.
“The cherries are here! Hurry down!”
“Got it, I’m coming. The cherries are here. Let’s go.”
Armando and I ran straight toward the winery. Before long, I saw a large truck stopped in the distance.
“Wait, something this big came?”
Dad and Mom were staring in surprise at the fifty-three-foot trailer attached to the truck.
“I told you it was ten tons.”
At that moment, a young, beautiful woman hopped down from the truck’s passenger seat.
Surprisingly, it was Chloe.
“Huh? Why are you here?”
While I was surprised, Chloe greeted my parents.
“Hello. I’m Brian’s friend, Chloe. Since it was coming from our farm, I came myself.”
I had already explained why the cherries were being sent, so my parents immediately understood the situation.
“Oh my! You’re so pretty!”
Mom kept saying beautiful as she took Chloe’s hand and beamed, while Dad looked at me with slightly suspicious eyes.
“Friend, a friend…”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, she’s my friend. I’m telling you, definitely…”
Armando, who was beside us, chimed in.
“They really are friends. Brian isn’t interested in Chloe.”
At those words, Dad made a strange expression. Just then, the truck driver jumped down with an invoice in his hand. He held a pen out to Dad and said,
“Please sign to confirm it arrived safely.”
“Ah, one moment… Let me check the condition of the cherries. All right, please start carrying the cherries now!”
Since they had been scheduled to arrive today, I had called the workers in advance. Because someone had reported them, the number of illegal immigrants in Napa Valley had dropped significantly, making it hard to hire workers, so I had to offer twenty percent more than usual to get them here.
Armando, Dad, and I began carrying the cherries, while Mom used basic English to stumble through a conversation with Chloe.
Inside the refrigerated trailer, wooden crates packed with red were stacked high. As we took them out one by one, the cherries’ distinctive sweet-and-tart fragrance seeped through the gaps in the crates.
After carrying the crates inside the winery, I glanced around and saw that the fermentation tanks and bottling equipment that had been used to make vinegar until recently had all been washed clean and were gleaming.
The stainless steel plates caught the sunlight and gave off a smooth silver sheen, shining as if the equipment had just been purchased. Traces of detergent and repeated rinsing remained on the floor, and the hoses hanging on the wall drooped quietly, still holding a little moisture.
To make cherry wine, we had called in a professional cleaning company and prepared everything perfectly.
Dad picked up a cherry from one of the crates and examined its color with interest. The cherry skin shone in the sunlight like a clear glass bead, and the tiny droplets of moisture on its surface added a ruby-like glow. Dad put it in his mouth, bit into it, and smiled with satisfaction.
“Oh… The sugar content is incredible.”
Chloe, who had come over before I knew it, smiled proudly. Perhaps because she thought of them as cherries she had grown herself, the pride was plain on her face.
“Right?”
“This is why Brentwood cherries are famous.”
I picked one up and put it in my mouth as well. When the soft flesh burst, what spread over the tip of my tongue wasn’t simple sweetness. A deep, clear sweetness, as if it had absorbed the sunlight, spread together with an acidity that stimulated the corners of my mouth. I could imagine how rich the flavor would become once it was made into wine.
After all the crates had been moved into the winery and Dad signed the truck driver’s invoice, I approached Chloe.
“Thanks for your trouble. We’ve moved all the cherries now, so you can head back.”
“Already?”
“I mean, it’s over…”
I was about to ask if she had planned to stay longer when Mom stepped in.
“We have a guest, so we should at least serve her a meal.”
“…Well, do whatever you want.”
At that moment, Chloe’s eyes widened as she asked,
“Can’t I watch you make the wine… just for a little bit? I brought these cherries, so I’m curious what happens to them.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Making wine is a secret. It’s our farm’s know-how.”
Chloe stuck out her lower lip, looking disappointed, but I paid no attention.
“This is business. Business…”
Unable to watch any longer, Mom said something to Chloe about how our son was always like this and that, then dragged her off to the house. Dad looked at me as if this was nothing new and said,
“You’re cold even to women, huh?”
“Dad, this is business. Business has to be cold. Sharp as a knife…”
When I made a chopping gesture with my hand like a blade, Dad chuckled.
“All right, now that everything has been carried in, we’ll start sorting! Each of you, take one crate, and put the sorted cherries into this big tub here! Please remove the leaves and foreign matter, and make sure to take out anything badly damaged or rotten!”
At my shout, the workers who had finished carrying the crates sat down in a row along the line I had prepared in advance and began sorting the fruit. If this had been before my regression, I would have used an optical sorter, but in 2004, there was no such equipment.
Dad and Armando were sitting with them, sorting the fruit as well, when—
“Hello! Is anyone here?”
At the voice from outside, I went out and saw a group of people coming up from the farm entrance. Among them, I spotted a few familiar faces.
“Ah, Brian! We meet again. I enjoyed the vinegar you gave me last time. My wife liked it very much.”
The person walking at the front of the group was Pierce Morgan from the Agricultural Extension Office. When I shifted my gaze behind his broad smile, he said,
“The state selected your farm as a demonstration site for the regional organic transition pilot project, didn’t it? So we decided to show nearby farm owners how you’re practicing organic farming.”
“Ah…”
As I said that, I glanced at Elowen, the owner of Silver Oak Farm, visible in the back. Perhaps noticing my gaze, Pierce Morgan spoke kindly again.
“We should include farms reapplying for organic certification too, shouldn’t we?”
“I see. All right. Come on up.”
Aside from the future knowledge buried underground, everything else consisted of techniques used even in the present, so I had nothing to be reluctant about. Dad also came out to see what was happening, heard the explanation, told them to look around freely, and went back to sorting fruit. I also said to Pierce Morgan,
“I’m a little busy right now because I’m making cherry wine. You can look around on your own.”
“Cherry wine? That’s unusual.”
It wasn’t strange that he called it unusual, because at this time, wine was strongly perceived as something made from grapes. Accordingly, cherry wine was considered separately as fruit wine, and most people evaluated it only as a sweet, light dessert drink.
Even before my regression, it was still classified as fruit wine, but natural wine had become popular, and as it gained popularity in the gourmet market as a refined and trendy alcoholic drink, it appealed to the younger generation. The perception now and then was very different.
The reason the perception differed so much was partly because the times had changed, but a major reason was that in 2004, proper cherry wine had not yet been produced.
In that sense, it was actually unusual that Chloe’s father, Frederick, didn’t have a negative perception of cherry wine. Most wine lovers valued tradition and viewed the unorthodox negatively.
Rather, the fact that he heard we would lower the sugar content and raise the acidity, accepted that at face value without a negative word, and thought of wine was something not easily seen among wine lovers of this era.
If not, then perhaps he had approached it purely commercially in order to find a large-scale cherry supplier.
“The wine we’re making won’t just be a sweet dessert drink. Once it’s finished, you’ll probably understand what proper cherry wine is.”
At my words, I suddenly heard someone snort from behind. It was obvious who it was—Elowen of Silver Oak.
He noticed his mistake and quickly turned his head, but I didn’t care.
“Proper cherry wine? Now I’m curious. May I taste it later?”
“Of course. Oh, but may I ask you for one favor?”
“What is it?”
“You must know restaurant owners of high-end places who want organic ingredients, so once the wine is finished, I’d like to gather them and hold a tasting.”
“Oho, so you want me to arrange it?”
“You won’t be disappointed.”
“…I’ll think about it.”
Pierce Morgan grinned, and I scratched the bridge of my nose with a smile before heading back inside.