Chapter 119: Stag's Leap Wine Cellars (1)
TL: Hanguk
Maybe because they were used to Koreans, neither Frederick and his wife nor Chloe showed much aversion to Korean food. Even in this day and age, bulgogi and kimchi were fairly well known, and when Mom heard that Chloe's parents were coming, she deliberately made the bulgogi extra sweet so the Americans would take to it.
Maybe that was why Frederick kept exclaiming "Fantastic!" all through dinner, and once he'd had his fill, he looked at me with a knowing expression.
"Honestly, I was shocked when Chloe told me about it. Jack's someone I know well too."
He'd run a tomato farm for a long time, so it was no surprise he knew the man well.
"Then he must have known Chloe was your daughter?"
"Probably. But he's not the type to care about that."
"He doesn't care? How can a person be like that?"
As a Korean, I found it genuinely hard to understand.
"His farm wasn't that big to begin with. At first it was only about 20 acres. This was over twenty years ago. But there was an incident where a neighboring farm drilled a groundwater well improperly, and the salinity of the groundwater shot up. Farming hadn't been easy for him, so Jack saw his chance and filed a lawsuit right away."
From the way he carried on, I could picture exactly how he must have operated back when he was young.
"So this wasn't his first time, was it?"
"Right. The thing is, at first he was only trying to squeeze out a few tens of thousands of dollars, but once all the surrounding farms joined the suit, it blew up far bigger than expected. On top of that, the damage from the rising salinity turned out to be worse than anyone had thought. So the scale of the lawsuit ballooned."
"Ah..."
"The farm owner who'd caused the damage couldn't cover the losses, so he put his farm up for sale and chose bankruptcy, and that farm got carved up according to the damages owed."
"So the land he has now originally belonged to someone else?"
"Right. Jack got more than 30 acres for free that way, and after that he pulled the same trick a few more times to grab land."
At that, my parents and I were left slack-jawed.
"So that means he was trying to take Chloe's farm too. How could he do something like that even though he knew you?"
"That's got nothing to do with it. He'd just say he's doing everything by the book."
"What a bastard."
"Exactly. If I'd drilled a well wrong while putting in my pear orchard, he's the kind of man who'd have slapped the very same lawsuit on me without a second thought. Which is exactly why I can't tell you how relieved I am that you stepped in to help Chloe."
"Not at all. It's only what anyone should do."
"From now on I intend to keep a close eye on Jack. I heard you told him there'd be no further lawsuits?"
"Yes. I didn't want him holding a grudge against Chloe for no reason."
"Smart thinking. With a madman like that, steering clear is always best. And even if you don't tip them off, the surrounding farms are probably eyeing Jack's land like hawks, you know? The owners around there know better than anyone how he expanded it."
At those words, both Chloe and I felt a chill run through us. The look in their eyes when they'd first stormed in came back to us all too vividly.
They hadn't come merely to wring out a little insurance money or damages; they'd come to carve up a sprawling stretch of land that ran to 70 acres.
"By the way, when are you thinking of buying a house?"
Watching Frederick ask once more, still hung up on the Deer Ridge Country Club, I answered awkwardly.
"Probably... around the end of this year?"
"That's not a bad idea. The real estate market's been looking unsettled lately."
The subprime mortgage lender New Century Financial had already gone bankrupt, and warning lights were flashing across the real estate market. I had no wish to live my new life playing the money game, so I tried not to pay it much mind, but there was no denying the market was in genuinely bad shape.
"Right. I'm planning to think about it around year's end."
"You've got long arms and good coordination, so you'd be great at golf. It'd be a lot of fun to learn together with Chloe sometime."
"...... Sure..."
And so, once the crisis that had befallen Chloe had passed, around the time April was drawing near, a black Bentley sedan rolled into Oakville in Napa Valley and came to a stop. An elderly man emerged as the door opened. Astonishingly, he was Warren Winiarski, the man behind the victory at the Judgment of Paris and the founder of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, the winery hailed as the pinnacle of American wine.
A Polish-American, he had founded his winery in 1970, and at the 1976 Judgment of Paris his 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon had beaten France's finest Bordeaux wines to take first place, catapulting him overnight into the ranks of world-class winemakers.
A single bottle of his historic 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon was now even housed in the Smithsonian Museum, and given how close Warren Winiarski and Robert Mondavi were, there was nothing strange about his visit.
His attire, too, was remarkably casual for a man stepping out of so expensive a sedan.
"You're here, then?"
As Warren Winiarski entered the study, he found Mondavi rising to his feet on his cane to greet him, and he waved a hand.
"Why on earth are you getting up? Please, sit down."
Warren had always known Mondavi to be hale and hearty, and he frowned at how gaunt he'd become.
The relationship between Warren and Mondavi was not merely that of two winery owners who happened to share Napa Valley. In the early 1970s, while Warren was studying wine, he had worked at Mondavi's winery and learned his winemaking philosophy there, so in truth their bond was closer to that of master and disciple.
When Winiarski had recognized the quality of the soil in the Stag's Leap area and chosen the SLV vineyard, Mondavi had thrown his weight behind the decision; there was even a record of him encouraging Warren, telling him he'd "picked excellent land."
And so, even though Mondavi was already past ninety and could pass away at any time without it being the least bit strange, hearing that his health was failing had left Warren in low spirits.
"Why the long face?"
Now seated, Warren gazed out the window at the vast vineyards stretching into the distance and grimaced.
"Just a lot on my mind."
"Heh heh heh... You've been crowned the most successful wine in all of America, and still you find things to fret over?"
"Until a man dies, isn't everything something to fret over? Even what to eat tomorrow is a worry. And it isn't the most successful wine. It came in second."
At the Judgment of Paris re-tasting held the previous year, the wine that had taken first place was the 1971 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello, and his wine had come in second.
"Ha ha ha! Such a grouch... I may be nearing my time, but that doesn't mean I'm about to keel over tomorrow."
"They say it isn't serious, then?"
"That's right. I've got a good year left in me yet."
At that, Warren nodded. He was somewhat relieved that there was still time.
Just then, someone came out from within and brought two glasses of wine.
"Tea would have done. Why wine?"
"Sick of it now, are you?"
"Honestly... a little."
It was an unexpected thing to say. But Mondavi, as if he understood what lay behind it, brought the hand holding his cane up toward his chest and spoke.
"I heard. You've put it up for sale?"
"It's been on the market for quite a while now. The buyers just wouldn't come up to my price, that's all."
Astonishingly, Warren Winiarski had put Stag's Leap Wine Cellars up for sale. Before, no one had offered a proper price, but after his wine took second place again at the previous year's Judgment of Paris re-tasting and reaffirmed its reputation, the sale had gathered sudden momentum.
"But your children are perfectly fine, so why?"
"Sure, they're alive and well, but that's all they are, isn't it? They've no interest in wine, only in real estate, sports, and funds... That's why I envy you so much. Seeing your children take a steady interest in wine and work to make it grow. Watching your grandsons and granddaughters work at the winery, you've no idea how I envy it..."
"...And? Who's taking it, then?"
"Marchesi Antinori and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates."
Marchesi Antinori, founded in 1385 and carried on for more than six hundred years, was Europe's longest-surviving winemaking family, based in Tuscany, Italy. One of the most prestigious wine families on the continent, they had aggressively pursued overseas investments early on, in places like the United States, Chile, Romania, and Malta.
Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, meanwhile, was the second-largest wine company in the United States, based in Washington; it had grown into a colossal winery on the strength of the worldwide success of Eroica Riesling, a joint venture with Germany's Dr. Loosen.
For these two companies to acquire Stag's Leap Wine Cellars meant that a family steeped in European tradition and history had joined hands with the capital and distribution of a major American corporation.
"And the price?"
"A little under 200 million dollars (roughly 186 billion won as of 2007), I'd say."
Having heard this, Mondavi picked up his wineglass with a grave expression.
"Here, there, everywhere, places are being sold off."
"Where else do you mean?"
"Duckhorn."
"Ah... I've heard about that. Dan said he was going to exit, and now it seems he's handing over most of his stake after all?"
The Dan he spoke of was Daniel J. Duckhorn, the owner of Duckhorn, though people in the industry and those who knew him called him Dan Duckhorn.
"Maybe it's because I'm an old man, but I don't much care for the sight of people selling off their wineries and walking away. No matter how much money there is in wine, the sight of someone openly cashing in and leaving..."
"So are you going to lay into me too?"
Mondavi looked at Warren over his wineglass and grinned.
"You're different. I know full well what it's like to want to pass something on but have no one to pass it to, and to let it go for that reason."
Upset, Warren grimaced again and lifted the wine he hadn't much wanted to drink, taking a sip. But then, knitting his brow and working it around his mouth for a moment, Warren asked,
"What's the occasion? Serving a wine that isn't one of your own?"
"Maybe it's because my time is near, but I've no desire to touch the wines I made anymore. The moment they hit my mouth, I can't help deliberating and analyzing."
"True enough. With someone else's wine, all you have to do is enjoy it."
"Heh heh... That's right. It's a wine I've taken a liking to lately, but the cheeky thing is, they make so little of it that not much reaches the market, and most of it gets released out East, so out West it's hard even to get your hands on."
Warren tilted his head for a moment, then quickly realized what this wine was.
"Ah! This is Sylphide. The one that's been quite the talk lately..."
He, too, had tried a bottle the previous year. This year, however, he'd only heard the rumors, and this was his first taste of it. Because it was a wine he'd had before, he could land on the answer at once.
"That's right. A cheeky wine indeed."
Warren let out a small snort of laughter.
"It's the winery that's cheeky. I heard the owner is an Asian..."
"I've met the owner, and among them it was the young fellow they called the owner's son who caught my eye. His talent for wine, how shall I put it... it felt just like looking at you in the old days."
At such a surprising compliment, Warren's eyes lit up.
"Is that so?"
Redwood Winery had certainly grown fairly famous in Napa by now, but that didn't mean every winery owner admired it or thought it remarkable. After all, this region was home to a great many world-class monsters.
What's more, a wine turning out well might owe to the winemaker's skill, but it could just as easily come down to the terroir of a particular vintage being extraordinary. That was why it mattered to keep putting out popular wines and build a name over time.
"Tsk tsk tsk... You've gone and let it all go, haven't you?"
It was a rebuke for having put the winery up for sale and stopped pouring his attention into it. At this scolding from Mondavi, who could well be called his old mentor, Warren gave a wry smile.
"Think of it as my having had no reason to keep trying."
"Fair enough... that can happen. So, how about it?"
"How about what?"
"If you're going to sell the winery anyway. Why not hand it over to that promising young fellow instead?"
But Warren put on an indifferent look.
"And give up 200 million dollars?"
"Couldn't you just take it in installments over a long period? Are you in urgent need of the money right now?"
"That's not it, but..."
"Think it over carefully. If you let go of the reins, do you really think Stag's Leap's philosophy will be properly preserved?"
At those words, Warren agonized over it for a long while and could not come up with an answer.
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