After the young Asian man left, an odd silence settled over the Robert Mondavi Institute, where only the two of them remained. Emily deeply disliked the way he had suddenly stormed off like someone sulking for reasons unknown, but the words he had left behind circled strangely in her mind.
So before she forgot what Brian had said, Emily immediately wrote it down on a memo pad and turned to Chef Daniel Roca.
“You’re saying we should make it once and try pairing it?”
“That’s right. I’m sorry for creating this situation.”
To be honest, Daniel Roca was the most bewildered of all. He had come at the invitation of the Mondavi family, and being treated like this couldn’t possibly put him in a good mood. But the student who was supposed to create the pairings at the end had left behind such an odd remark before walking out that, rather than feeling offended, Daniel found himself curious.
“Before that, first...”
Daniel placed the Fumé Blanc into an ice bucket filled with ice.
“Could you check the temperature?”
“What? Yes, of course.”
Suddenly overcome with curiosity, Daniel quickly began making the chicken liver mousse, green peppercorns, and apple confit. As he worked, he kept looking at Emily, clearly asking with his eyes about the wine’s temperature.
“Not yet...”
Following his instructions, she waited while checking the wine’s dropping temperature with a clip-on digital thermometer. When the Fumé Blanc reached 10°C, she took it out. Then, with practiced ease, she opened the wine with an opener and poured it into the narrow glass Brian had mentioned.
Daniel, who had stopped cooking, and Emily speared the appetizer—balsamic herb scallops—with their forks and tasted it.
“Hmm...”
Daniel’s eyes widened even more than Emily’s. Then he took another close look at the bottle of vinegar the Asian young man had left behind.
“Redwood Vinegar...”
Nodding, he took a sip of the Fumé Blanc. And then...
“Wow... Haha... Did you feel that?”
Emily set down her glass and drew her brows tightly together, savoring the lingering finish in her mouth as much as she could.
“The Fumé Blanc amplifies the presence of the balsamic even more. The aroma feels stronger too. And...”
She could not finish. What she meant was that the shortcomings of the Fumé Blanc, which had received a terrible evaluation, did not stand out much in this situation. In other words, at least with the appetizer, the pairing with the Fumé Blanc was an excellent match.
“That friend isn’t entirely without ability, is he? Let’s try more. Let’s follow exactly what he said.”
Rather, Daniel Roca grew excited and resumed cooking. The confidence of that young Asian man, who had merely glanced over the menu and ingredients without tasting anything and then composed the pairings—Daniel was far too curious about the results. In line with this, Emily decanted the Private Selection Cabernet Sauvignon at 16 to 17°C for about thirty minutes.
Daniel, who finished cooking in no time, placed a spoonful of chicken liver mousse and confit atop a thinly toasted slice of baguette, finished it with a few peppercorns, and handed it to Emily. Then he made his own exactly the same way as hers, and they each took a bite.
“Mmm...”
“This is good.”
The chicken liver mousse itself, rich in fat and leaving behind the heavy aroma unique to iron, was deeply satisfying to both Emily and Daniel. When they immediately took the wine into their mouths, the tannins melted in smoothly, as if wrapping around the mousse. The pepper spice suppressed the iron scent, and the lingering aroma was surprisingly clean.
“Haha, this is surprising. That Asian friend is impressive!”
“......”
The pairings for the main dishes that followed—the smoked duck breast with cherry glaze, and the skirt steak with pecorino—were both nearly perfect. Of course, that was only within the limits of the wines prepared here, but even so, impressive was impressive.
Daniel, who had run a restaurant in San Francisco for quite a long time, had met many sommeliers, but he had never encountered anyone with this level of skill, making it all the more astonishing.
And there was one more thing that surprised Daniel even further.
“Let’s try just one more.”
For the final course, Chef Daniel had originally prepared a semifreddo using lemon, but he decided to make it using the vinegar the Asian young man had left behind.
The frozen semifreddo he had prepared in advance was placed on a plate, and elderflower syrup flowed thinly over it. A drop or two of the grape vinegar that friend had left behind was mixed into the syrup, and even from the scent alone, a faint floral fragrance and a slightly sharp tang gave off a powerful presence.
Though Daniel had made it himself, he could not resist taking a bite with his fork.
“Haha... To think there’s vinegar with such a refined, deep aroma... Try it.”
But Emily Mondavi had lost interest in the sweet dessert. If the shock Daniel had received was positive, hers was the opposite. The Asian young man had looked only at the menu and ingredients as if it were a bother, finished the pairings, and then left the Institute so abruptly that she had not even properly grasped what her grandfather had instructed.
“Haa...”
Feeling this powerless for the first time in ages, Emily could do nothing but smile awkwardly as she watched Daniel taste the dish he had made and look satisfied.
---
A week later, on the day the Winkler Dinner was being held, I was at the Brentwood cherry farm instead of the school event hall. And the person most surprised by that move was Chloe.
“Is it okay for you not to go to school? Did you come because of me?”
As she asked with sparkling eyes, I flicked the brim of her straw hat and said,
“It’s a strategic investor relationship. I came to check whether the grafting is going well.”
“Still, aren’t you supposed to be there?”
“That’s why I set all the pairings before I left. There’s no need for me to be there.”
If I had needed to handle the pairings alone, I wouldn’t have been able to slip out like this, but amusingly enough, the fact that Mr. Robert Mondavi had attached his granddaughter to me actually made things far more relaxed. The chef could make the food, and if a problem arose with the wine, she could handle it.
“Ooh—I thought it was a super important day, so you absolutely had to be there.”
“It is an important day, but it’s not some event tied to our grades. It’s an event to raise funds to support the students’ educational activities. The money raised goes toward things like immersion trips for students to wine-producing regions, international internship scholarships, and student vineyard management. They said they’ll sell food and hold auctions too, but I only agreed because the department head asked me. There’s no real need for me to be there.”
Of course, I was merely making excuses because I didn’t want to go. It was good for the winery to become famous and for the brand value to rise, but I didn’t like being constantly observed by someone at my side like a lab rat.
“Then that’s great.”
Whatever the reason, Chloe was delighted and showed me the grafts she had worked on.
“From here all the way over theeeere, I did all of them.”
“Yeah, let’s see how they turned out. Where’s your father?”
“If you walk about twenty minutes in that direction, he’s there.”
“Okay. Let’s take a look as we go.”
Chloe said she had done everything all the way to a place I couldn’t even see in the distance, but that only meant it stretched along one line, not that she had done this entire area. Even a man couldn’t do that much work alone.
“You didn’t use the chainsaw too, did you?”
“The workers cut everything for me. Why? Were you worried I did it myself?”
“...You’re becoming just like Armando.”
“Me, like him? No way.”
“You’re exactly the same. You disinfected all the blades and shears before using them, right?”
“Of course.”
“What disinfectant did you use?”
“Seventy percent isopropyl alcohol. I already learned all that at Zaiger Genetics.”
Her memory was pretty good.
“Good. If you run out, you can also use bleach diluted nine to one. For reference, the water is the nine.”
“I know.”
As I looked around while passing by, the work was generally careful and well done. The cut surfaces where the main trunks had been severed with a chainsaw had been thoroughly coated with wax to seal the wounds, and grafting tape and parafilm had been used to meticulously prevent moisture evaporation.
As I walked along, nodding, Chloe gave a shy grin and said,
“My skills aren’t bad, right?”
“They’re better than I expected. When I saw the photos, I thought you’d only brought me the ones that turned out well.”
“I told you.”
“Huh? That one’s a mistake.”
When I pointed to a graft that had been done wrong, its bark turned brown and shriveled, Chloe bounced up and down in protest.
“They said that even an eighty percent success rate is amazing.”
“Mark it and graft it again.”
“I will.”
Chloe, looking dejected, checked the tree’s location and wrote it down in her notebook, and I started walking again. After walking for quite a while and checking the condition of the grafts, I saw Mr. Frederick and the workers in the distance, wrestling with the trees.
But as I drew closer, something seemed off. The workers were surrounding Mr. Frederick. I quickened my steps, and when I got close, I saw one of the workers wrapping Frederick’s hand with a bandage.
“Dad!”
As the startled Chloe ran over, Frederick spoke as if it were nothing.
“It’s nothing. I just got cut for a moment.”
But the worker wrapping the bandage frowned and said,
“It’s not just a cut. Blood was pouring out earlier.”
“When you work, don’t you normally end up with wounds like this?”
“That’s true, but...”
“Enough. Just wrap it quickly.”
Most Americans dislike going to the hospital, so unless it is a major injury, they tend to handle it with first aid. But considering Mr. Frederick’s wealth, there was no need for him to go that far. Perhaps because he had spent his whole life farming, he, too, seemed to consider minor injuries nothing special, having always treated them on-site with rough first aid.
“...You need to go to the hospital.”
Chloe’s eyes had reddened as if tears were about to well up, and Frederick said as though it were a bother,
“I said I know. Ah, Brian. You saw it on your way here, didn’t you? What do you think?”
Rather than his own injury, he seemed pleased by the way the farm was changing, and he asked with a bright expression.
“It looked like it was going well.”
“Right? Do you know I went to San Francisco a few days ago and received three hundred thousand dollars as an advance payment? Everyone lost their minds when they saw our cherries. Antoni! Go bring some cherries.”
A moment later, a worker appeared holding red, plump cherries. Chloe was staring at her father’s hand, now stained red as blood seeped through, but Frederick smiled as though he had not been hurt at all.
“What do you think? Last year, we had good ones like this, but we also had mushy ones and small ones. This year, they’re all like this. Just as you said, each one is firm and the sugar content is high.”
“That’s good.”
“Exactly! Once these grow properly in two or three years, there’ll be nothing to worry about.”
He tapped the tree he had grafted and laughed heartily.
“It’ll go well. Let’s go. I have something to talk about too.”
“Do you? Then we should go.”
His vehicle happened to be parked not far away, so we got in and left.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
“Nothing special. I was going to tell you to go to the hospital.”
“What? And here I thought... Did I ever say I wasn’t going? Since you came, I was just trying to show you what I needed to show you. I know when I’m hurting too.”
“Yes, yes...”
Frederick looked slightly deflated, but soon smiled again. Just then, my cell phone vibrated, and a message arrived.
- Did you know the course you paired at the Winkler Dinner received the best rating? But where did you go?
It was a message from Sienna, but I simply ignored it. The second message, however, could not be ignored.
- How much stock is left in the warehouse?
It was from Mr. John Anderson, who was distributing the vinegar. Had the six thousand bottles he had taken been used up in less than two weeks?
“Could you drop me off at my car?”
“Since you’re here, why not have a drink with me before you go?”
“I think I need to get to the winery urgently. And I’ve checked the grafting and the soil condition to some extent, so I’ve done what I came to do.”
“That’s a shame. Well, if you say so.”
A little while later, when I got out of his car, Chloe smiled and waved at me, then urged her father to hurry to the hospital.
“She’s finally growing up.”
I chuckled and called John Anderson.
“It’s me. Have all six thousand bottles already sold out?”
A delighted yet urgent voice soon came through the receiver.
“Don’t even get me started. Bristol Farms already swept up five thousand bottles. With the remaining thousand, I had just started placing the vinegar in markets around Napa, but now bulk orders are suddenly coming in from San Francisco!”