Chapter 43: Cerasia(3)
TL: Hanguk
A week later, I headed back to the Dare Ridge Country Club where Chloe lived. After driving for over an hour and arriving at her house, Chloe came outside again when she saw the car I’d come in this time too. She was wearing a cream-colored knit sweater and jeans, and objectively, she was pretty.
“Wait a moment.”
I took out three cases of Cerasia from the car one by one and carried them into the house. In the process, Chloe’s brother came out to help, sticking his lip out in dissatisfaction, but I pretended not to notice.
“Is this it?”
After everything was moved, Brandon picked up a bottle of Cerasia from a case and examined it with interest. Feeling bad about having his cherry farm taken by his younger saister was one thing, but it looked like he’d become interested in the fact that it was wine made from their farm’s cherries.
“Hahaha! You’re here!”
“You came again, welcome. Brian!”
Chloe’s parents, who had been in the living room, came over to greet me warmly, but when they saw the three cases of wine piled up at the entrance, everyone’s attention shifted that way.
“Honey, is this that?”
“That’s right. Let’s take a look.”
Frederick pulled out a wine bottle and inspected it in the exact same posture as Brandon, and from the side, the father and son looked exactly alike. He broke into a broad grin at the line on the back of the label that said it was made from cherries from Harris Orchards (Brentwood).
“Very nice. I like it a lot.”
“If you like it that much, why did you ask for it for free?”
When I brought up what I’d heard through Chloe, Frederick gave a slightly embarrassed smile.
"Can't you just give me one case for free?"
"No. You're taking half of the sales revenue, and you're asking for a whole case for free? Maybe one bottle, but not a case."
The reason I’d brought three cases was because Frederick had asked to purchase Cerasia. Since the minimum purchase unit was three cases, there was no choice but to buy that much, and even so, Frederick didn’t think he’d bought too much.
“That’s why I bought three cases.”
Seeing Frederick holding the wine bottle with satisfaction, his wife, Amelia, pointed out dryly.
“Honestly, it’s more that you want to show it off than drink it, isn’t it?”
“Of course! Naturally. Once it’s officially released, I’m going to hand it out to all the Brentwood farm owners. How jealous do you think they’ll be? They’ll want to make the same thing, but they don’t have a winery that would turn it into wine like this. They’ll probably scour every winery in California.”
In fact, Frederick’s words had quite a point. Even for a large-scale cherry farm owner, it was common sense that a farm owner who earned secondary profits through processing companies overwhelmingly made more money than one who simply sold cherries.
If anything, compared to handing over 100 tons of cherries to Redwood Winery, taking just 20% of the revenue from selling the wine would still be about twice as profitable.
“Alright, come on in. Brandon, stack the wine cases in the pantry.”
“Okay.”
Surprisingly, even though Brandon made a sour face, he did what he was told, as if he listened well to his parents.
Come to think of it, I’d heard he’d gotten furious because his younger sister took the cherry farm, but it was still strange that he wasn’t rebelling by running away from home or anything and was just enduring it. Was this normal?
“Come here and sit.”
Frederick seated me on a dining chair in the living room. Then he took out a bottle of Cerasia and started opening it with a wine opener.
"You don't mind if I open the one I'm going to drink now, right?"
“Of course.”
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since that tasting event that day.”
“... Honestly, it came out to about 80% of the quality I’d been aiming for.”
At those words, Frederick’s hand, turning the opener, stopped short.
“Really? 80%?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“There are a few reasons, but most of it is information that could be considered winery confidential, so it’s difficult for me to tell you, but anyway, that’s how it is.”
“Hah, I can’t exactly not believe you... If most of it is hard to talk about, that means you can talk about one or two things, right?”
“Um... the sugar content was a little low.”
At that, Frederick nodded as if he understood.
“That would be the case. Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir would have Brix in the mid-twenties. But isn’t that something you have to accept?”
It was something he could reasonably say.
“Right now, it couldn’t be helped.”
It was a strange thing to say, but for now, Frederick decided to let that part slide. The guy had so many secrets that he didn’t look like he’d satisfy curiosity just as it was, and on a happy day like today, he didn’t want to focus on something that wouldn’t be resolved right away either.
Glug, glug, glug...
“You know the sound it makes when this wine falls from the bottle. I find that feeling so good. It’s like I’m drinking my anticipation for the wine before I drink it.”
He really was a true drinker. I almost asked if he wasn’t an alcoholic, but I saw Chloe sitting beside me and let it pass.
“You really love wine.”
“Don’t you?”
“I’m only twenty now.”
“... Come to think of it, that’s right. But how do you make something like this?”
“Science.”
“Science?”
“Yes. Chloe’s mother being good at cooking isn’t because she’s good at science, but surprisingly, if you’re good at science, you can cook even better. Farming and brewing are the same. Even if you don’t like alcohol, if you know clear formulas, you can produce the quality you want.”
At my words, Frederick was impressed.
“Amazing. And it’s reassuring, too. So you’re saying you’re not relying on your own taste or senses, but thoroughly following something concrete and detailed, like a recipe?”
“That’s right.”
“Then the quality will be consistent from now on.”
As expected of a businessman, he caught the most important point in what I said.
“Most likely.”
He nodded, then took a sip of wine. And with an expression that couldn’t be put into words, he expressed his own emotion, then poured into Amelia’s glass, and into Brandon’s and Chloe’s glasses as well.
“Do you have any guesses as to why I made these kids compete?”
“... Well. I’m not sure.”
He slowly swirled the wineglass and spoke.
“Kids these days don’t know how to make sacrifices. They don’t even know the value of time. They don’t know the importance of land. All they like are pop stars and movies and dramas and the like. And they think working on a farm is hard and uncool. Unfortunately, I thought my kids weren’t much different.”
“That’s not me.”
Brandon cut in immediately, but Amelia suppressed him with a curt remark.
“It isn’t, huh? You’re the one who didn’t even come out to the farm until you were in your second year of high school no matter how much your dad asked you to help.”
“Back then... I was studying.”
“How were your grades again?”
“......”
Brandon shut his mouth, and Chloe quietly turned her head toward the window. Frederick gave a small chuckle at the sight of his daughter and said,
“That one over there did cheerleading until middle school, and when I said I’d cut off her allowance completely if she didn’t study agriculture, I was able to send her all the way to Vintage High School. Well, since she gained such a fine friend there, I suppose you could say it was an excellent choice.”
“For me as well, it’s nice to have gotten to know a reliable cherry supplier.”
"Hoho, I feel like we really understand each other."
It felt like he was misunderstanding something about me, but I stayed quiet.
“To continue, neither of the two pleased me, not for a long time. So I made them compete, half as a joke and half in earnest. And only then did both of them start pouring attention into the farm. Honestly, it felt exhilarating and satisfying. And if things had gone badly, I was going to not hand the farm over to either of them for real.”
“Dad! That’s too much!”
Brandon complained, but Frederick instead raised his glass and said to his son,
"Didn't both of you end up getting one each anyway?"
“......”
“Honestly, I was going to not pass any of it on and sell the farm.”
At the bombshell, Chloe’s family was startled.
"You've never said anything like that before."
When Amelia asked in surprise, Frederick drank his wine and said,
“I’d been thinking about it. Honestly, since you didn’t show interest in the farm, it was very hard on me, too. Whether I should keep running this. And because of development expansion, even now I get calls from time to time telling me to sell the land. They say they’ll give twelve million dollars for the land. Just for the cherry farm, too.”
“Really?”
At the mention of twelve million dollars, Amelia was startled.
“So I even thought about wrapping it up and going around having fun with you. But if I devote myself to farming, a fixed revenue of at least three million dollars a year comes in from the cherry farm alone, and I just didn’t want to hand it over for that little money.”
At those words, I was convinced that Frederick wasn’t simply farming and then handing things off wholesale, but was also involved in distribution. And if he had his hands in distribution as well, three million dollars was truly the minimum, and depending on how he did it, I thought he might have been making up to twice that.
And a large farm owner with 200 acres like this holds strong authority in the region beyond the income they bring in. It meant it couldn’t be evaluated by money alone.
Frederick turned his head back toward me and spoke.
“Especially, I’m very grateful to you because it seems like it’s thanks to you that Chloe, who didn’t seem to have much interest in anything other than having fun, is now showing interest in farm work. Honestly, with the ten tons we sent, it would’ve been fine even if we didn’t take the 50:50 profit on the wine. Because my daughter changing is more valuable than that.”
“If that’s the case... then, as you wish...”
When I tried to accept his offer without even a moment’s hesitation as if I’d been waiting for it, Frederick gave an awkward smile.
“I meant that’s how it was then. Now that the wine came out this well, taking a portion of the sales isn’t something I can give up, not for money, but for my personal satisfaction. I hope you’ll understand that.”
“Looking at it, Mr. Frederick always talks nicely, but it seems like you make sure to secure all the practical benefits.”
“Hahaha! I’m not usually like that, but this time it happened to turn out that way. I’ve lived without being told I’m a narrow-minded person. Now, bring out the contract.”
I placed the contract on the table, one that had already been reviewed by a lawyer. On the thick draft pages, the title [Redwood Winery – Frederick Orchards Supply & Profit Sharing Agreement] was written in bold letters.
Frederick unfolded the papers with a face full of curiosity. The printed clauses were packed tightly. From supply volume to quality standards, annual unit price increase rates and payment terms, force majeure natural disasters, and methods of arbitration in the event of disputes...
“You’re asking for the rate of disease and pest damage and mold infection to be kept under 1%? Isn’t that too strict? Depending on the crop, you should allow up to 2%.”
“Alright. Instead, if it exceeds 2%, let’s make it a 5% discount off the unit price per ton.”
“That won’t be easy. And the supply price is 3% every year? Hmm... If prices go up too much, that puts me at a big disadvantage.”
“That’s fine too. If the CPI (Consumer Price Index) exceeds 5%, let’s link it to the CPI.”
Since if prices rose, the wine price would rise as well, I decided to concede this much.
Once all the signatures were completed like this, Frederick burst into hearty laughter and said he’d prepared a party today, and that he’d gotten a barbecue set up in the yard. As he bragged that he would show us the taste of Texas-style barbecue, Chloe cut in.
“Dad, Brian says he can greatly increase our cherry production capacity.”
At the sudden remark, Frederick looked at me.
“Really? I heard you gave my kid tips about adjusting soil acidity before, and I thought you were someone who sticks to the basics. But you have a way for the yield to become overwhelmingly higher than before?”
“I don’t know about overwhelmingly, but on average, about 20 to 30% is possible.”
Honestly, Frederick couldn’t believe it. Twenty to thirty percent might be just words, but on a farm this big, that kind of production increase was an enormous thing.
When her dad made a shocked expression, Chloe stepped in.
“I talked to Brian, and I asked him if he’d help us if the yield increased and we offset the cost for the corresponding additional supply volume.”
“Wait, so if Brian increases the yield on our farm, the winery takes the cherries for free in the amount of the increase?”
“That’s right.”
“And if there’s extra left over?”
Chloe shut her mouth, and Frederick looked at me. I answered calmly.
“Seventy-thirty.”
“I’m the seventy, right?”
“I do have a conscience.”
“Does the cost go up to increase production?”
“It’ll probably go down.”
“The costs go down but the output goes up? Is that possible?”
“It is. If you trust me.”
As a new deal began, Frederick rubbed his palms once, as if his hands were sweating, then downed the remaining wine in one go. Then he filled the glass again, glug glug glug, and said,
“Seventy-thirty of the profits, right?”
"I'm not hoping for 30% of the sales either. As a result, you'll have to contract directly with our farm, and the period will be set at 30 years. Based on current profits, I'll take 30% of that increase for 30 years."
"Haa, 30 years... Well, let's move past that for now. Our farm's profits haven't changed much from 20 years ago when you consider inflation. Hmm... I thought I would earn 110,000 dollars annually, but this way, you're the one who will earn that much?"
But I shook my head with a calm expression.
“That won’t be the case.”
“Hm?”
“If you do as I tell you, it won’t be just that much.”
“The scale gets bigger? How?”
“There are a few stages, but even just the first one or two will make things much better. And the higher the stage goes, the sales and profits will surge.”
When I showed it by stacking layers with both hands, Frederick swallowed hard. For a moment, he thought, ‘If it’s that amazing, what about your farm?’ but then he remembered the results from the Harvest Fair and the wine quality of Cerasia and the Pinot Noir, and he had nothing to argue back with.
“Can I know what those stages are?”
“The first would be soil management and fertilizer, and the second would be irrigation and moisture. Of course, strict confidentiality is required.”
“Do you think I’m crazy enough to spill secrets like this to competitors? Anyway, once we get past those first two stages?”
“... From then on, it requires a bit of a gamble...”
“I’m curious, so let’s hear it.”
I became curious what kind of expression he would make.
"I'll have you change the variety. After that, we expand the scope of distribution. I don't care how far you allow it. Just the first stage alone will be enough to increase profits. Well, it doesn't matter if you don't do it. I'm just proposing this because Chloe asked me and I can help this much."
“......”
Frederick genuinely became curious about what was inside this young Asian man’s head.
*****
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