The atmosphere of the tasting grew even hotter than when they had drunk the cherry wine. It was clearly an unfinished wine, and its quality was lower than the cherry wine’s, but everyone was amazed by the balance it had achieved in just three months, and they began to pay even more attention to Dad, the owner of the winery.
“Are we witnessing the birth of Napa Valley’s next star?”
Someone even muttered that under his breath. Mark, who heard it right beside him, looked in confusion at the middle-aged Asian man holding the stainless-steel decanter.
He could not for the life of him understand how an Asian, from a people who hardly cultivated wine grapes at all, could produce such a result, but rather than deny reality, he chose to accept it.
The problem was that he had yet to figure out how to respond to the reality he had accepted.
“Hahahaha! To have this kind of aroma after a mere three months... truly astonishing. I’m the one who supplied the cherries for that cherry wine, and isn’t it incredible? There’s a reason I supplied cherries here, of all places.”
Frederick had been making a great show of it for a while now, so the restaurant owners seated around him nodded. The owner’s skill was impressive enough to make them accept even such absurd boasting.
While everyone was thus steeped in admiration, the middle-aged Asian man spoke.
“I’ll say it again, but this is not yet a finished wine. It merely shows the direction Redwood Winery is heading in. So I hope you won’t think too poorly of its shortcomings.”
As soon as Dad finished speaking, Rufus Fillmore, the owner of Le Jardin, which specialized in French cuisine, waved his hand.
“We know there are areas that are lacking, but considering the time frame of three months, I don’t think anyone here could say such a thing.”
At the very least, the people seated here were capable of predicting how a three-month-old wine would change two years later. That was why Mark grew even more anxious.
‘How much would I have to offer to make him move? A million dollars? Two million?’
Before he could finish that thought,
“I’d like to place an additional order for the cherry wine. I’m planning to assign it to the full year-end course pairing, so could I receive at least forty cases, four hundred eighty bottles?”
The owner with the aged voice was Theodore Goodwin of Blaze Bistro. He had initially ordered five cases, but after tasting a completely different Pinot Noir, ordering forty cases meant that he acknowledged the winery’s skill and trusted the consistency of the cherry wine’s quality.
As soon as he finished speaking, Roberto Rossi, the owner of an Italian restaurant called La Fiorentina, raised his hand.
“I’ll take thirty cases. The cherry wine gave me some inspiration. If I put a Choice steak with cherry reduction sauce on the menu as a signature dish and pair the wine with it...”
“Nothing could be more perfect for Christmas.”
Since everyone knew very well that the limit was eight thousand bottles, they immediately placed advance orders for at least one or two months’ worth, far exceeding the quantities they had ordered at first.
“Please wait a moment, I’ll write that down again.”
The Asian boy, who was said to be in the same department as Sienna, was now running busily around, and the sight even began to grate on Mark a little. When he thought about why he felt that way, he understood right away. Right now, the boy was taking orders for the cherry wine, but before long, Mark could imagine him taking orders like that for the Pinot Noir.
Then one person asked the Asian boy taking orders,
“Then what variety does this vineyard mainly produce?”
“Cabernet Sauvignon.”
“Aha—really? Then...?”
“Yes. The grapes harvested this year are already in oak barrels. Since it’s that particular variety, it’s a shame that we can’t let you taste it early the way we did with the Pinot Noir.”
“Ah... that is a shame. But it makes me look forward to it all the more.”
“You can look forward to it as much as you like. At the Harvest Fair held in Sonoma this year, they tied for first place as wine grapes alongside grapes from the To Kalon area.”
At those words, everyone was surprised again. There was not a single person among them who did not know the value of Cabernet Sauvignon harvested from To Kalon.
“It’s a pity I didn’t get to see those grapes.”
“Exactly.”
People clicked their tongues in amazement. A winery that maintained top-tier standards not only in winemaking but also in cultivation, in Napa Valley of all places? It was clear that the name Redwood would not be easily erased from the minds of the wine-related business owners who had visited today.
“It was a good thing we came today.”
Mark tasted the three-month-old Pinot Noir once more and steeled his fighting spirit, and Sienna looked at her father with a complicated gaze.
---
After the tasting ended, in the car on the way home, Mark Harrington was driving while staring straight ahead with a grave expression.
When he had come to Napa, he had done so half out of curiosity and half to educate Sienna. But on the way home, the shock had left him unable to even make a light joke with his daughter, and he had fallen into silence. Bothered by that, Sienna watched her father’s mood several times before asking,
“That Pinot Noir earlier... it was better than ours, wasn’t it?”
Mark hesitated for a moment, then spoke honestly.
“Was it better than our wine? I’m not sure about that. But if you asked me whether I could bring a Pinot Noir to that state in three months, I’d say it would be impossible.”
“Pinot Noir needs at least a year and a half to two years anyway, doesn’t it? Then it could end up worse than ours two years from now, right?”
“It could.”
Though he said it was possible, Mark’s expression remained gravely hardened.
“You mean there’s a high chance that won’t happen?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
After organizing his thoughts for a moment, Mark slowly began to explain.
“Wine right after fermentation is usually rough and unstable. No, not just usually—most of the time. Pinot Noir generally becomes commercially viable after a year and a half at the earliest, and usually after two years. You know that, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why?”
“Um... well, that’s...”
She knew it all, but when it came time to say it, Sienna found herself at a loss. Mark nodded and kindly explained to his daughter.
“What are the three representative elements in evaluating wine?”
“Tannins, acidity, and aroma.”
“Correct. Those two years gradually smooth out the rough tannins in freshly fermented wine, and the sharp acidity blends with the fruit aromas to create balance. And the simple fruit aromas spend time in oak barrels, adding floral and herbal notes, and later on, more complex aromas like earth, leather, and mushrooms.”
“I know.”
“But when tannins, acid, fruit, and alcohol are already fitting together well after just three months, it means a few things. First, that the quality of the raw material—the grapes—is outstanding.”
“If it’s Pinot Noir from Russian River Valley, that’s more than possible.”
Harrington Farm, owned by the Harrington family, was not part of Russian River Valley, but it belonged to the Carneros AVA, which was regarded as having a comparable environment.
Because of that, they took pride in cultivating top-quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that would not lose out anywhere. But Russian River Valley was recognized worldwide, so neither father nor daughter dared disparage the raw material.
“Second, that the winemaking process is extremely precise. And third, which is similar, that there are no unnecessary flaws like volatile acidity, VA, or reduction, sulfur off-flavors caused by sulfur compounds being improperly formed during fermentation or storage. And if those three are in place, it means the basic stamina for long-term aging has been set up superbly. In other words, the wine’s potential can be considered boundless.”
“Ah...”
Only now did Sienna clearly understand why her father had become so serious after tasting a wine that was only three months old.
“Other than the part about needing good raw material, the remaining two depend entirely on the winemaker’s skill... and that means that middle-aged Asian man is, at the very least, more skilled than I am.”
“More than you, Dad? That’s impossible.”
“There’s nothing impossible about it. Didn’t I say from the beginning when we came to Napa? If there’s a good winery, it’s only natural to pay a large sum and acquire its technology. This kind of thing doesn’t happen often, but that doesn’t mean it never happens. Geniuses always appear in this world, and people like that lead the world forward.”
Sienna, accepting her father’s lesson with a heavy expression, suddenly turned her head at a question that occurred to her.
“Then shouldn’t you have talked to that Woody Choi at the winery earlier? You said you had to acquire the winery.”
Mark shook his head with a complicated expression.
“There were too many people. Imagine me offering money to buy the winery while he was busy seeing off visiting guests. He’d think, ‘How desperate must he be to bring up payment in a situation like this?’”
“Ah, no matter how much you offer, Mr. Woody Choi would become suspicious of the price?”
“Exactly. The correct answer is to change the situation and request a private meeting, then explain calmly.”
“I understand.”
Sienna nodded, hoping that her father would recognize the winery’s value properly, offer a good price, and definitely buy it. If that happened, she felt she would be able to learn a little more about wine from that Asian boy, who would have much more free time.
*
The next day, Redwood Winery.
After going to school in the morning and attending classes, I brought not only Armando but even Chloe to the winery. Armando worked on our farm, so there was nothing special about him coming, but Chloe had come to the winery purely to watch the bottling process for the cherry wine.
I could have refused, but there was no real harm in showing her the bottling, and above all, the person who had put the most effort into making this label design was Chloe.
“When does the mail come in?”
Dad asked as soon as he saw me.
“It should arrive around tomorrow, shouldn’t it?”
“Everything about America is fine, but sometimes there are things that are needlessly complicated.”
“I know. It can’t be helped. Still, a large sum of money is coming in.”
The confirmed advance payment for the cherry wine this time was over twenty thousand dollars. That amount would be like a welcome rain for our tight finances. The one problem was...
“That’s why I’m putting up with it.”
If this were Korea, the payment would be sent straight to the account, but in America at this time, transactions usually were not done that way. When the winery issued an invoice, the restaurant issued a check and sent it by mail. Then, after taking that check to the bank and depositing it, the funds would become available two or three days later.
It was certainly a more complicated and troublesome structure than in Korea.
“Brian! Are those bottles stacked outside the ones you made this time? They look really good.”
Armando saw the bottles stacked in boxes near the automatic bottling machine and came into the office to say so.
“You’re just saying that to look good in front of Chloe, aren’t you?”
“No?”
“Why in front of me?”
When Chloe also poked her head in, I waved both hands at the two of them and shooed them out of the office, then went out with them.
“But it was pretty good.”
“Hehe, I may not know about anything else, but I do have an aesthetic sense for beauty.”
At my compliment, Chloe shrugged her shoulders and bragged to Armando. But Armando was ready to praise her as much as necessary, intending to make use of Chloe in order to hit on a girl he liked in our college.
“It really is amazing. Maybe it’ll be a huge hit thanks to you.”
“...... It feels like you’re making fun of me.”
“That’s just your imagination.”
While the two bickered, I fed the label sheets we had received from the factory into the machine. A considerable amount of effort had gone into making these as well.
Making wine did not end in the vineyard and oak barrels. Only after countless procedures and regulations had been checked, all the way until the wine entered the bottle and reached the consumer’s hands, was the label made.
The most important things on a label were the wine’s name and design. As promised, Frederick proposed a name for the wine through Chloe, and unlike what I had expected—that it would be terribly tacky—it was quite good.
Cerasia.
They said it was a name derived from the Latin word for cherry, Cerasus. I wondered where that big man had gotten such a sense of style, but in the end, it turned out Chloe had come up with the name. Frederick had pushed for “Brentwood Reserve,” but it had been rejected outright. Mm... well done, Chloe.
At that moment, Dad came out of the office and said,
“I got a call from Mark Harrington... the person who connected us to those three restaurants and attended the tasting.”
“And?”
“He wants to meet. He says he’ll come here.”
Remembering the look in Mark’s eyes as he gazed at Dad during the tasting, I let out a small laugh.
“Tell him to come.”
I became rather curious what the head of the Harrington family, which would have been considered Sonoma’s number one family in the old days, had to say.