After the barbecue party ended and Brian left for home, Frederick came outside and sat on the bench, already sipping his third bottle of Cerasia.
“Just how much are you planning to drink?”
At his daughter’s voice from behind him, Frederick spoke without even turning his head, looking up at the moon.
“My daughter, you were so pretty when you were little, but now all you do is nag.”
“I nag because there’s something to nag about. Mom’s passed out drunk on wine, and Brandon, well...”
Perhaps everyone had taken quite a liking to the cherry wine, because even Chloe’s mother and Brandon had already gone down for the count. Chloe had drunk quite a bit herself and her face was red, but she wasn’t completely drunk.
“Are you worrying because of what Brian proposed?”
“How could I not? This is different from paying him seven hundred thousand dollars, providing cherries for ten years, and sharing the profits. The future of the farm is at stake.”
Chloe sat down beside her father.
“I don’t see how it’s any different.”
“How is it the same? If the farming method changes even a little, the entire ecosystem changes. Have you forgotten when Mr. Raymond made a mistake with the fertilizer and the mites swarmed everywhere? A tiny difference like that can decide a whole year’s harvest.”
“Dad, the one who made up for that mistake was Brian. And he pursues farming more scientifically than anyone.”
“I know. That’s why I’m worrying. If someone else had said something like that, I wouldn’t even have given it a glance.”
“So you’re not worried about the profit, you’re worried it might fail, right?”
“Yeah. As for profit, it’s always been like this, so if things go well, what’s there to regret about giving him thirty percent for thirty years? I can just sit still and take a good seventy percent of the increased profit.”
As Frederick agonized, Chloe suddenly leaned her head toward him.
“Just trust him. You were going to give it to me anyway.”
“You already think it’s yours? I’ll put it in my will. That Harris Farm goes to Chloe. Delta Grove will go to Brandon. But not now.”
“But think about it. What kind of farm do you want to pass on to your daughter? Do you want to pass on a stable cherry farm that never grows each year? Or a cherry farm that grows every year? Once you pass away, it’ll be my farm, so it’s not strange for me to care about it starting now.”
“If I could be sure it would grow, I wouldn’t be worrying. The wine—I tasted it myself, so I could throw seven hundred thousand dollars at it, but this... Just what do you see in that boy that makes you trust him so much?”
Chloe thought hard for a moment before answering.
“Mm... his passion for farming? Up to now, he’s barely talked about anything except farming. Pop music, games, sports, even girls—he doesn’t seem all that interested. It feels like all his attention is focused on farming.”
“......”
“How could I not trust someone like that? When Brian says he’ll help our farm, I actually get excited. I get curious about how it’ll change...”
Seeing his daughter speak with her eyes sparkling, Frederick realized there was no helping it. And strangely enough, he had to admit that what his daughter said was persuasive.
“Whew. Fine.”
“Hm? Really?”
“Yeah. This time, I’ll have to draft the contract. To be honest, I’m a little scared.”
“Make it well. Though Brian won’t be easy to deal with.”
“I’ve been through more of that sort of thing than you have. Whew. I wish that Brandon rascal would do even half as well as Brian.”
At the mention of her older brother, Chloe’s expression changed completely and she snorted.
“Hmph! He wouldn’t manage it even if he tried his whole life.”
“......”
---
Harrington Winery, Sonoma County.
Inside the winery’s aging room, lined with oak barrels, Mark Harrington sat with a heavy expression. The wine in the glass he held glowed purple, but he muttered in anguish.
“No... This isn’t it.”
What he wanted was the three-month-old Pinot Noir he had tasted at Redwood Winery a few days earlier. A balance that was impossible to believe. The tannins, acidity, and fruit aroma were already evenly aligned. And yet the wine in his hand now, despite being made by Harrington with its decades of tradition, was rough, and the smell of fermentation had not yet faded.
In truth, this was how it should be. It made no sense for a three-month-old wine to have such good balance. Even so, Mark simply couldn’t give up. If it had been something that didn’t exist, that would be one thing, but hadn’t he seen and felt it with his own senses? How could he possibly give up?
In the end, Mark struck the table and shouted.
“Andrew!”
A moment later, an old veteran with silver hair entered. It was Andrew, the chief winemaker who had been making wine at Harrington Winery for over forty years. As always, he wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“Are you still troubled over it?”
“That Pinot Noir we drank at Redwood. It was only three months old.”
“So you said. Three months.”
Andrew could not describe how bewildered he had been when he heard that. If someone else had gone somewhere, tasted a three-month-old Pinot Noir, and made such a fuss, he probably would have let it go in one ear and out the other. But the person who had tasted it himself was Mark, so he couldn’t not believe him.
“The tannins weren’t harsh, and the acidity didn’t stand out. The fruit aroma had already harmonized with the oak.”
“Yes, I’ve already heard.”
He had heard it several times already. He had wondered whether such a thing was possible, but even he could not get a grasp on it at all. If he had known the method, he would have used it long ago to raise the status of Harrington Winery even higher.
Still, he couldn’t pretend not to see the winery owner suffering, so after thinking it over, he mentioned the few hints he had managed to come up with.
“For now, there are a few possibilities. First, they may have controlled the fermentation temperature with extreme precision. Usually, yeast produces heat as it ferments, and if you fail to manage that properly, the flavor becomes rough.”
“We have a temperature control system too. Do you think the equipment in that grape-sized little winery at Redwood is better than ours?”
“That would be... difficult to believe. Second, we could consider the yeast. Instead of the commercial yeast we use, they may have used a new starter. A strain that brings out the aroma clearly and reduces fermentation stress.”
“...Is there yeast like that on the market right now?”
“Not as far as I know, but... to be honest, it would be more accurate to say I haven’t made much effort to search for it. We’ve been maintaining our quality reliably with the yeast we’ve used all this time.”
On that point, Mark had nothing to say. Harrington was famous as a winery that produced Pinot Noir and Chardonnay ranked among the top three in Sonoma County, and Mark had taken immense pride in that. Because of it, he had never even thought about developing further from there.
With a feeling of regret, Mark let out a breath.
“Then the last one?”
“There is oxygen management, though this part isn’t clear either... Normally, wine receives very small amounts of oxygen through the oak barrel, and the tannins soften as a result, so I wondered if they had perhaps made more active use of that type of technique.”
“Damn it. So we know nothing.”
“No. I meant that if we dig further into at least those three areas, we may find an answer.”
“Hah. To think I’d start studying wine at this age.”
“There is no age limit to learning. Thanks to you, sir, I’ll have to study wine a bit myself this time.”
With a faint, self-mocking smile on his lips, Mark rose from his seat.
“Good. Look up the latest papers if you have to. UC Davis, Dijon in France, anywhere is fine. Gather every related piece of material you can. And we’ll experiment too.”
“Understood.”
“We have to catch up. If we can’t... it means we’re falling behind.”
“I’ll do my best.”
After Andrew left and the door closed, Mark, now alone, raised his glass. Remembering the aroma of the wine he had drunk at Redwood yesterday, he brought it to the tip of his nose. But no matter how he swirled it, the wine in his glass today did not reveal that vivid fruit aroma and smooth balance from back then.
“Redwood...”
As he muttered, frustration and a strange flame flickered together in his eyes.
“What on earth did they do?”
---
UC Davis.
I had just finished my final lecture, physics class, and was about to leave when Professor Thomas Edward walked in through the door, making me sit back down. As he came in, he turned his head as if looking for someone, and his eyes met mine exactly.
“There you are. The rest of you may leave, but Brian, would you come to the front for a moment?”
“Yes...”
I awkwardly went to the front, and half the students left the lecture hall while the other half, the curious ones, stayed in their seats. They were curious why the department chair had personally come to see a freshman student.
Then the back door quietly opened and a few students entered. Among them were Sienna and Matthew. The curiosity in the students’ eyes began to deepen more and more.
“I’ve been busy, so I’m only getting to speak with you now.”
“If it’s something important, perhaps somewhere quiet...”
“No. It’s also something that would be good for everyone to hear together. And those two over there can’t endure their curiosity, so if I speak to you separately, they’ll come find me, pester me, and make me say the same thing again. Better to talk here.”
This old man was only thinking of himself. He wasn’t considering at all that I might be uncomfortable, which was absurd...
“Haha, yes...”
“It’s because of the grapes grown at Redwood Farm... Have you perhaps ever seen To Kalon’s terroir in person?”
Of course I had. When I was doing a wine research project at Cornell University, I had once been invited to visit a UC Davis research vineyard.
“No.”
“I thought as much... By any chance, could you visit our research vineyard and tell us how it differs from your vineyard?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s... a secret unique to our winery.”
At my disappointing answer, Department Chair Thomas’s expression furrowed.
“As expected... It’s unfortunate, but I anticipated it. Then how about this? The students taking a field trip to your farm this time. That much should be all right, shouldn’t it?”
“That’s fine.”
After all, wineries often make up for insufficient profits by operating for ordinary tourists. It wasn’t as if the winery itself was wrapped up tight in secrecy. Unless someone watched from beside us as we made it, they wouldn’t know our winery’s production methods.
“Good. If we go this time, will we be able to taste that famous three-month-old Pinot Noir?”
So this was the old man’s real goal?
“Haha, yes... There isn’t a large amount, so I’ll serve it specially to you, Professor.”
“Hahaha! If you had refused even that, I would have been very sad. We’ll contact you once the date is set. See you then.”
“Yes, certainly.”
It wasn’t much of a conversation, but because he’d done it in front of the students for no reason, more people were paying attention to me. I quickly slipped out as if fleeing, and Armando happened to be waiting in front of the lecture hall.
“Oh! Popular guy! Popular with students! Popular with professors!”
“That’s not funny, you know?”
“But today, I’m a popular guy too! Do you know who I met today? On the way here...”
As Brian and his friend moved away, Matthew, who had been watching them from afar, asked Sienna,
“Why won’t you talk about going to their winery?”
Sienna turned her head and looked back at Matthew. Matthew never lost his composure or ease, but strangely, when it came to that Asian friend, he couldn’t seem to hold back his curiosity. Sienna found that unexpected.
“Because I don’t want to.”
The face of the gentle Matthew lost its balance slightly.
“You didn’t want to?”
“Yeah.”
“Would it be rude if I asked why?”
“...... Because my pride was hurt. That’s why I don’t want to... Ah, I get it.”
As she answered, Sienna’s eyes suddenly lit with realization, and Matthew’s eyes wavered.
“What?”
“Why you keep caring about Brian. Your pride was hurt too, wasn’t it?”
“Hah... It’s not like that.”
Despite his denial, the sparkle in Sienna’s eyes did not change.
“Is it because of the wine evaluation? Ah, that too, maybe, but because of those grapes back then? Mm... I’m curious.”
“What else?”
“The reason my pride was hurt was because I tasted our farm’s main wine, Pinot Noir, at Redwood. But you saw the grapes, yet you didn’t get to taste the wine, did you? Cabernet Sauvignon.”
“......”
“If Brian pulls off Cabernet Sauvignon too... Wow, I’m really curious what kind of expression you’ll make.”
“Do you want to see me lose?”
“I’m not sure myself. About how I feel...”
Sienna’s index finger slowly traced along Matthew’s jawline.
“I can tell you one thing. I don’t like men I can’t respect.”
“I won’t lose.”
“That would be nice.”
With a faint smile, Sienna turned and disappeared.