“Vinegar? What are you talking about?”
Dad wiped the sweat from his brow with the towel around his neck, then perched on an empty plastic grape crate beside the storage shed.
“Just because Mr. John Anderson sold off all the marketable grapes doesn’t mean we can throw these away.”
“That’s why I was going to sell them cheap.”
In truth, the best way to secure even a little cash was to sell them to a low-end winery that dealt in cheap goods.
It was a shame to use Cabernet Sauvignon to make cheap wine, but if it would help cover even a little of the principal and interest, then it was the right thing to do. It was also the easiest option.
But I didn’t want to hand over these grapes for next to nothing.
“You said he tried making wine before and failed, right?”
“Mm... That’s what I heard. Don’t tell me you’re thinking about wine too?”
Dad was startled, practically horrified.
“Why are you so surprised? We’re growing Cabernet Sauvignon, a top-tier grape variety this good. Isn’t it stranger not to try making wine ourselves? That’s probably why the former owner, Mr. John Anderson, tried to make wine.”
Dad had, of course, told me that there was winemaking equipment tucked away in one corner of the vineyard.
“He gave up because it wasn’t easy. They say he wasted ingredients and failed over and over trying to make it. Why do you think the farm went under?”
“I know. But trust me. If we make and sell the wine ourselves instead of selling the raw materials to a winery, the profit will be at least five times higher—maybe even twenty times!”
“No...”
“And! I’m not saying we should make wine right now. I’m saying we should make vinegar. Those can’t be used for wine.”
When I pointed at the grapes in the boxes, Dad finally calmed down. He probably figured that even if we sold grapes with poor marketability, they wouldn’t bring in much money anyway.
“Vinegar? Not wine, but vinegar?”
“Yes. Vinegar can be made just fine with grapes that aren’t marketable.”
“Do you even know how to make vinegar?”
Under Dad’s doubtful gaze, I deliberately struck a pose full of bravado.
“Of course! You think I’d suggest making it without knowing that much?”
“Then how...?”
Before Dad could finish his question, someone’s voice came from outside.
“Hey! Anyone there?”
When the three of us stepped outside, a white man in his fifties wearing a cowboy hat was standing there.
“Who are you?”
Dad asked, and the man gave a broad smile.
“Ah, nice to meet you. I’m Elowen Pike. Fine day, isn’t it? Is this your family? And this must be your son?”
“Yes... that’s right.”
What I really hated about these Americans was how, whenever they met someone, they acted pointlessly friendly and launched into all that so-called small talk no one actually cared about. They wouldn’t even remember it the next time they met you.
“He’s a handsome boy. He looks young, but already farming? Helping your parents?”
“That’s right.”
“Admirable.”
Turning his head back to Dad, he asked,
“I heard the owner of the farm changed. Do you happen to know where he is?”
So in the end, that was what he had come to ask.
“I’m the owner.”
“You? Ah... Oh... I see.”
He looked surprised that an Asian man was the owner of the farm, then smiled awkwardly and said,
“From what I know, I heard the farm wasn’t in good condition. Why did you take it over?”
It was a rather sensitive and blunt question, and Dad’s expression hardened.
“It was cheap, and I thought I could revive it. Is there a problem?”
Dad had known basic English even before immigrating, and after coming here, he had studied it desperately. So he clearly understood the condescending tone in the man’s voice, and his own tone came out less than polite.
“No problem. I was just worried. A farm this large... Do you have any experience?”
“I worked on this farm.”
At that moment, one corner of Elowen Pike’s mouth lifted. It was an unmistakable sneer. He must have figured out that Dad was merely an immigrant farmer who had taken over with government support.
“Ah... I see. Understood. Best of luck.”
After saying that, Elowen flicked his cowboy hat in an obnoxious way and turned to leave. I called out to him.
“By the way, where are you from?”
He slowly turned back, swept his eyes over our family, and said with a faint smile,
“Silveroak. That’s my home.”
“Ah!”
Silveroak Hills Vineyards.
It was the largest single-scale grape producer in Napa Valley and sat in the most crucial location, spanning fifty acres—about sixty-one thousand pyeong. The wines produced there were famous as some of the most highly regarded in California.
In terms of vineyards in this area, it was essentially the top dog.
The three of us stared blankly as he swaggered away with his shoulders thrown back.
“Doesn’t he seem kind of awful?”
As expected, Mom was quick on the uptake. Her English wasn’t great, but she had immediately grasped that the man was unpleasant.
“He does. An obnoxious bastard.”
Just then, Dad turned his head and asked,
“Why did that man suddenly come here?”
I watched his car driving away and said,
“Elowen must have known Redwood Farm was in trouble. Even if it’s struggling now because of disease and pests, he probably thought he could revive it since he has plenty of experience and good techniques. But then we went and bought it first! Wouldn’t he have been quite shocked?”
I couldn’t remember who had bought Redwood Farm before my regression. All I knew was that by the time I quit being an accountant and returned to my parents, I started working not at a vineyard, but at an orange farm, so I didn’t know much about the situation in Napa Valley.
Even so, I had a feeling close to certainty about why that man had come.
“Then if we’d been a little late, we might not have been able to buy the farm?”
Looking at my startled father, I spoke triumphantly.
“That’s why I told you we should buy it quickly. If we’d been even a few days late, that guy would’ve snatched it from us.”
“Ah...”
“Maybe...”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe the disease and pests spreading through Redwood Farm were his doing too.”
At those words, my parents were startled.
“What?”
“Isn’t that going too far? That’s a bit much, dear.”
“Ha, ha... What am I going to do with you two, being so pure? Think about it. They say all of Napa Valley suffered from disease and pests this year, but did you hear anything about powdery mildew spreading through Silveroak Farm?”
To be honest, I had no idea whether powdery mildew had spread there or not. But it seemed my parents didn’t know either.
Seeing them shake their heads, I thought, Perfect, and raised my voice.
“Then what does that mean? Didn’t he probably think he could ruin a competing farm somehow and gobble it up at a cheap price?”
“Can someone deliberately spread disease and pests?”
“Of course. If you secretly plant or hide infected branches or saplings among healthy vines, the infection spreads easily.”
When the thought first occurred to me, I had thought, just like Mom, that I was overreacting. But the more I said it out loud, the more plausible it started to sound.
It felt like I was completing the story as I spoke.
“Huh? This actually sounds really plausible. What a complete bastard!”
But I didn’t say that out loud. I only shrugged and slipped back into the storage shed.
“Anyway, Dad, you saw it just now too. We can’t let our guard down. If we don’t raise the farm’s profit margin, there’s no telling when that obnoxious guy will try to take it over.”
“Hm... You’re right.”
Some might say we could simply refuse to sell if we didn’t like it, but in a situation where we had to repay the loan principal and interest every month, if the farm’s future didn’t look bright, we would have no choice but to accept an offer from someone trying to acquire it.
Because people had to survive somehow.
“The former owner, Mr. John Anderson, must have tried to make wine, since there’s equipment inside the farm, right?”
Dad sat back down on the old crate and said,
“It’s not that. Apparently, the wine made by Mr. John Anderson’s father was very well received. So the facilities aren’t recent either. But John, who liked to fool around, never learned it properly. The grapes were good, but the wine that came out was mediocre, so it didn’t receive its proper value, and I heard he couldn’t make much profit.”
“Ah... So that’s what happened. When we first took over the farm, the thing that made me happiest was the winemaking equipment. Because the equipment used to make wine and the equipment used to make vinegar are very similar.”
My parents’ eyes widened at the good news.
“Really?”
“They’re made in similar ways?”
Neither of them likely knew how vinegar or wine was made, so their reaction was only natural.
“Yes. Especially the early process—extracting the juice and going through the first alcoholic fermentation—is almost identical. The only difference is that wine goes straight to aging and bottling after alcoholic fermentation, without an additional acetic acid fermentation process.”
“Oh my, when did our son study all that?”
Mom stroked my shoulder as if she found me admirable.
“Your son has always studied hard.”
I wasn’t originally this kind of person, but perhaps because I was seeing my parents, who had once passed away, a cute, childlike way of speaking that I hadn’t used when I was young slipped out.
“So from now on, our first goal is to make vinegar with those grapes and supply it to department stores. You understand, right?”
“Will it go well?”
“I told you, just follow my lead.”
“Okay. Then I’ll clean the winemaking equipment with your father now.”
“No. We need to call in a professional, have them check if anything’s broken, and fix whatever needs fixing here and there.”
“Is that so? My, our son is so thorough. Whose son could he be? Hohoho!”
After resting for a short while, my parents went back up to harvest grapes.
Left alone, I closed the storage shed and came out, then thought of Elowen, who had left earlier.
“I don’t think he’ll just give up...”
For now, I decided to start by figuring out everything I could about Silveroak Farm.