A wholesale market near San Francisco.
Before the sun had fully risen, forklifts shuttled back and forth, their rough engine noises and the blare of whistles dizzying the ears.
Frederick carefully backed the Volvo VNL 53ft reefer trailer into the designated dock line. As he stepped down, Chloe, who had ridden with him in the passenger seat, followed him out and opened the trailer’s rear door together with him. The moment the door opened, a sweet cherry fragrance burst out.
“Just one box for now.”
Frederick took out one of the cherry boxes stacked on the bed. The box was tightly wrapped in shrink film, and a blue stamp was printed on its side.
HE Harris Orchards
Pack Date: 05/18
Block: C-4 / Var: Bing
Chloe pressed her finger firmly against the stamp. A bit of ink rubbed off onto her fingertip.
“How much of the crop was pre-sold?”
“320 tons. 100 tons are going to Redwood, and since this year’s total yield is 980 tons, we have 560 tons left to sell.”
“Dad, isn’t this amazing? You cut down 30 percent of the farm for grafting, so how can the yield be only slightly different?”
It was certainly a surprising result; even Frederick could only click his tongue in amazement.
“It’s an unbelievable result. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. It’s not just the yield—until last year, a considerable amount had to be discarded even after harvesting.”
“Ah, you mean a lot of them weren’t marketable even after harvesting?”
“Exactly. But now, almost everything we harvest has such excellent commercial quality that there’s nothing to throw away.”
Frederick set down the box he was holding with pride, and a market supervisor approached with a clipboard. A small thermometer hung around his neck, and a utility knife was tucked into his waistband.
“Shipping origin... Mr. Frederick? You came with your daughter?”
The two of them seemed to already know each other well.
“That’s right. This is my daughter, who’ll be inheriting the cherry farm.”
Frederick smiled proudly and placed his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. Chloe felt both proud and pleased by her father’s display.
“You’ve raised her well. Good. Shipping origin is Brentwood. HE Harris. I’ll open one sample box.”
The supervisor ran a box cutter along the tape of the box. He peeled back the thin sheet containing ice packs and lifted out the entire top row. He plunged the thermometer straight into the center of the flesh. A moment later, numbers appeared on the screen.
“6.1°C.”
He picked up two cherries and pressed them gently with his fingers, then popped one into his mouth. A firm, crisp texture could be heard quietly.
“Good freshness, and they’re firm. How much volume do you have?”
“We brought 20 tons today, and an additional 540 tons are available.”
“Good. Bring over two pallets.”
“Sure.”
Frederick had someone bring out two pallets of cherries from the refrigerated truck, then stepped back with Chloe and spoke in a whisper.
“From here, we just wait. If someone comes, picks one up, and says something showing interest, that’s when it starts.”
Sure enough, people who had been watching from a distance began gathering one by one. A buyer with a purchasing company’s logo on his cap, a middle-aged man who seemed to represent a small merchants’ association, and even a young man wearing a chef’s jacket at this early hour. Each put on disposable gloves, opened the boxes, and lifted out individual cherries. They rolled them in their palms, pressed them, and bit into them whole.
“The color is uniform.”
“18 Brix sugar content? That’s high for Bing cherries? No bitterness.”
One of the buyers spoke up.
“Today’s market price, based on one flat... starting at fifteen.”
Another immediately jumped in.
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen fifty.”
“Seventeen.”
The numbers weren’t rising dramatically, but the expressions were gradually growing serious. The fact that the price was climbing was a sign that the cherries in this section were quite good, so Chloe let out a small breath and gripped her father’s arm tightly.
“What does that mean?”
“A flat is the most basic unit used in cherry distribution. One flat is 11 pounds (approx. 5 kg). When he called out fifteen, he meant fifteen dollars per flat.”
“Ah...”
Regardless of the two’s whispering, the bidding continued.
“Seventeen fifty.”
Another buyer crossed his arms and tilted his head back.
“Eighteen.”
Frederick’s eyes narrowed slightly. His expression was blank, but his hand remained glued to his waist. Just then, another buyer cut in and lifted out a row from the box.
“This one is size 9.5. You should pay a higher unit price than for 10.5s.”
“They aren’t mixed. Every row is printed, so check for yourself.”
“Then calculate them separately by row.”
A light war of nerves ensued, and the numbers shifted again in tiny increments.
“Eighteen fifty.”
“Nineteen.”
The supervisor returned, opened a second box, and placed a handful of dewy cherries onto a vinyl tray. Frederick took half a step back toward Chloe and spoke in a low voice.
“We’ve already exceeded the market price by 20 percent.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Higher would be nice, but closing here wouldn’t be bad either.”
At the news that the cherry price had formed 20 percent above market rate, Chloe forced herself to hold back the smile trying to form at the corners of her mouth.
“Nineteen fifty.”
“Twenty.”
The buyer who had crossed his arms earlier opened his mouth one last time and held out a business card.
“How much do you have in total?”
The card he held out identified him as an MD at Whole Foods Market, a representative premium supermarket chain in the United States, and Frederick allowed himself a faint smile.
“It comes to about 3,900 flats (roughly 20 tons).”
Arithmetically, 20 tons should equal 4,000 flats, but with grading, loss, and packing errors, it usually comes out to 3,600–3,800 flats. Frederick had said 3,900 flats assuming the grade was uniform and losses were minimal.
“Then how about nineteen fifty for the entire lot today?”
“That’s possible.”
In a single contract, he sold the 20 tons of cherries he had brought for $76,000. The purchasing representative squatted down and hand-wrote an invoice, listing the company name, quantity, row standard, size, unit price, and total amount.
“The deposit is thirty percent.”
The buyer unfastened a gray money belt and held out a cash envelope.
“What about the balance?”
“We’ll settle the remainder by check after the incoming inspection is complete.”
Frederick signed neatly on the signature line. Before the ink had dried, he watched Chloe stamp the document with a bewildered expression.
“Wow... This is good, right?”
“Yes. Someday, you’ll have to come here and do what I did, all by yourself.”
“I can do it. I’ll do it well.”
Frederick, in high spirits, patted his daughter’s shoulder once. He had felt the same way when signing the pre-purchase contract for 320 tons, and now, having secured a good price once again, countless thoughts raced through his mind.
And Chloe felt the same. Having witnessed with her own eyes the cherries she had painstakingly cultivated over a year bear good fruit and close at a price above market rate, an indescribable emotion welled up inside her.
Just as Chloe’s eyes began to well up, someone appeared who dashed their warm emotions like cold water.
“Frederick?”
When they turned their heads, William Hartford was approaching with his large belly sticking out. The paper in his hand looked like an invoice, and his expression was somehow irritated.
“I heard you sold them for quite a high price?”
“Haha, I just got lucky.”
“Good for you. If you raise the value of Brentwood cherries like that, it benefits us all. But is this it?”
William had known all along that Frederick’s Harris Farm was up to something strange, but he hadn’t paid it any mind. He was a man who believed in traditional farming methods and thought any other strange antics were useless.
That was why he had only now properly checked the cherries coming out of Harris Farm.
“Hmm...”
The average cherry price hovered around fifteen dollars per flat. He hadn’t believed the rumor that Harris Farm had fetched over nineteen dollars, but coming to see for himself, it was clear that these cherries were markedly different from those grown on his own farm. The freshness, the texture—if they hadn’t already been sold, he would have wanted to try one.
“How did you do it?”
“I’m sorry, but I received the farming methods through a strategic collaboration with another farm. It’s difficult to say.”
“Come on... What kind of lie is that...”
“It’s not a lie. It’s true. And it wasn’t free—I paid quite a lot of money for consulting.”
At those words about paid consulting, the request to be let in on it retreated back down William’s throat.
“I see...”
“Well, we’ll be on our way...”
Afraid William might say something strange, Frederick quickly left the market with his daughter. And William stared for a long time at the cherries being guarded by the broker.
---
A week later, I had reached the point where my entire body smelled of cherries from dealing with the endlessly incoming fruit. I had thought it was a lot when I first made it with 10 tons last year, but making wine from 100 tons was difficult to fully express with the word “hard.”
Even after continuously pitting the cherries by machine and turning them into juice, the mountain-like heaps of incoming cherries seemed like they would appear as monsters in my dreams.
After collecting all the cherry juice into the existing equipment at the winery and the recently acquired stainless steel fermentation tanks, the total came to 65,000 liters. Curiously, it fit exactly into the capacity of the newly added tanks.
If we assumed a 9 percent loss rate, roughly slightly less than 60,000 liters would come out as wine.
“Let’s do a good job with this batch too.”
It was while fermenting in the final 5,000-liter fermentation tank using the same three yeasts and fermentation starters as before—Lalvin RC212, Lalvin 71B-1122 Narbonne, and Torulaspora delbrueckii—that it happened.
“Brian!”
Armando’s voice called from outside. The aging room was off-limits to anyone except authorized personnel, so aside from me and my father, no one could enter. That was why people like Armando had to call out loudly or phone me.
When I stepped out of the aging room, an unexpected figure was standing beside Armando. It was Sienna, the beauty with long legs who always wore a crooked smile.
“What are you doing here...?”
“The Agricultural Extension Office asked for student participation in an organic farm tour for young farmers. I’m here leading the juniors.”
“Ah, so you’re basically a kindergarten teacher?”
“You could say that. And I have business with you too.”
“With me?”
At that moment, Armando pouted his lips and made a bizarre expression. I waved my hand at him, telling him to leave for now.
“If you two talk alone for more than ten minutes, I’m calling Chloe.”
“Shut up! Get out!”
“I’m watching you! Chloe...”
After chasing Armando out, I turned back to find Sienna looking at me with an intrigued expression.
“Are you and this Chloe girl dating?”
“...Senior, if you’re going to say weird things too, why don’t you just leave?”
“My, you look like you wouldn’t, but you’re quite prickly?”
“.....”
“Fine. Well, it’s nothing serious, but... why didn’t you attend the Winkler Dinner on the day of the event? Your advising professor was very disappointed.”
I shrugged.
“I did everything I could? I matched all the pairings.”
“When there’s a problem on-site, you have to handle it. That’s a sommelier’s job.”
“I’m not a sommelier. I’m a farmer and a winemaker. I only helped because Department Chair Thomas asked me to.”
“Ha, you’re really funny. Wouldn’t attending the event have been a chance to make a better impression on the professors?”
It was a reasonable point, but what I needed were decent grades and decent connections—I didn’t want more than that. Because I believed that only my skill could achieve anything beyond that. Going to school and getting grades was merely the minimum safeguard to avoid being dismissed as an Asian winemaker.
“Well-made wine gets talked about even if it just sits there. I don’t care if I don’t make a special impression on the professors.”
“Tch...”
For some reason, she looked frustrated and took something out of her bag to hand to me.
“What is it?”
“A ticket. This year’s Winkler Dinner turned out well. So they gave a few students the chance to tour the Château Latour winery in France...”
Without listening to the rest, I held the ticket back out to her.
“I don’t need it.”
“What?”
Sienna’s eyes showed she couldn’t understand.
“I don’t have the leisure to go to France right now for a tour and some fun.”
“What are you talking about? Can’t your parents take care of the farm? It’s Château Latour!”
“I know. It’s the winery that makes Château Latour, considered the quintessence of Bordeaux First Growth (Premier Cru Classé) wines and recognized as one of the greatest wines in the world. But... I told you I’m busy, right?”
“No, how busy can you possibly be...”
“I have a lot to do. I’ve been extracting cherry juice and running fermentation all week. I have to keep checking the fermentation state, rework next year’s vinegar production plans, design the labels for the wine we’re about to release—I wouldn’t have enough time even if I had ten bodies. And you’re asking me about France in this situation?”
“......”
Sienna’s jaw dropped at Brian’s attitude, treating an opportunity anyone would covet like dog shit abandoned on the side of the road.
“W-well, if that’s how it is...”
“Please explain it well to the department chair. If not, I’ll say something myself.”
“But you’re making cherry wine again this time? Last year’s batch was well received, so I guess there are high expectations this year too?”
“Well... last year we couldn’t produce much, only about 8,000 bottles, but this year I think we can do up to 80,000 bottles.”
Sienna blinked her eyes at me as I smirked. Having finished her calculations in a brief moment, she spoke.
“It was eighteen dollars last year, right? Right? Eighty thousand bottles... one point four million dollars?”
“Wow, you’re quick at math.”
Sienna gulped at the thought of $1.4 million in annual revenue.