Chapter 120: Stag's Leap Wine Cellars (2)
TL: Hanguk
Warren Winiarski's face was far from bright when he returned to Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. It was the tangle of thoughts that had knotted up inside him, and just then, the door flew open.
"Father! I heard you went to the Mondavi winery today?"
His son Jonathan Winiarski, thirty-eight and already a father of two, still had a shallow gleam of anticipation in his eyes over what opportunities selling this winery might bring.
"I did."
"What did you talk about?"
He stared at his son for a moment, then sat down in his study chair and said,
"Didn't you hear his health isn't good?"
"Ah..."
Jonathan nodded indifferently, as though it were a topic he didn't much care about, then promptly set both hands on the desk and said,
"Father, once Stag's Leap is sold, we can move ahead with setting up the investment firm just like we planned, right? I talked it over with my brother too, and he says real estate around San Jose still has plenty of room to climb."
"I heard the real estate market's in a dangerous spot right now."
"The housing market, sure. But land prices are a different story. There's already plenty of money flowing in, but they say it'll keep coming, mostly from IT companies, so we need to invest fast. Which means now, with the market stalling, has got to be the opportunity, no question."
"Hmm..."
Warren let out a deep sigh, regarded his son's eager face calmly, and said,
"Jonathan."
"Yes?"
"If we sell the winery... is that really what you want to do?"
Jonathan grinned as if it were obvious.
"Father, the money you can make from wine has a clear ceiling. We need to go bigger. I'll make you into a Trump, Father. A real estate tycoon."
"You think your old man's going to live as long as Mondavi?"
"Of course. If you live to ninety-three like Mr. Mondavi, you'll get to see your son turn into a tycoon. I've already picked out what we'll invest in. You know how everyone's jealous that we're getting it at such a great price?"
"Well, I'm not so sure about that."
Worried that Warren's reluctance might change his mind, Jonathan spoke in an urgent, persuasive voice.
"Why are you trying to bring up something we already settled? I have no interest in wine. Even my brother won't touch a drop of alcohol. I respect you, Father, but please don't ask me to take over your work."
"...All right, for now."
When Warren waved a hand as if there were nothing more to say and told him to go, Jonathan shook his head with a disappointed look and walked out of the study.
A good while later, sometime just past five in the afternoon, a guest arrived at the mansion. It was Brad Duncan, vice president of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates (MW Estates) and a man known throughout Washington's wine industry for his silver tongue.
In his mid-forties, sports sunglasses pushed up on his head, he came toward Warren with a bright, witty smile.
"Mr. Winiarski! Always an honor."
Warren extended his hand out of courtesy.
"Welcome, Brad. I heard the kids invited you."
"Ha ha, Kailyn's cooking never fails to move me. I couldn't turn down the invitation."
Kailyn was Jonathan's wife and Warren's second daughter-in-law. Brad Duncan had grown close enough with this household that it would hardly have seemed strange for him to drop by even when he had nothing in particular to discuss about acquiring the winery.
At the table were the guest, Brad Duncan, the second son Jonathan and his wife, and the couple's daughter, Jenny. With the eldest son's family away traveling in France, it was a fairly modest gathering compared to usual.
"No matter when I drink it, Stag's Leap wine is the best. You can tell the quality from the very first nose. The balance between acidity and concentration; this is where you feel true genius."
Everyone wore a proud expression at his praise, but Warren only gave a bitter smile and said nothing.
Because he knew Warren had been lukewarm about selling the winery from the very start, Brad wasn't the least bit offended. All that remained now was hammering out the finer terms and a little tug-of-war over price, and since the gap between the figures each side wanted wasn't large, the sale was, for all practical purposes, as good as done.
So with no reason to fret or work to win anyone over, Brad Duncan spoke as easily as if he were talking to a friend's father.
"There's actually one thing I find a little regrettable. If the acquisition had gone through early last year, we'd have turned last year's thirtieth-anniversary re-tasting of the Judgment of Paris into a documentary. It would have been an enormous sensation."
"A documentary?"
When Jenny asked with wide, round eyes, Brad gave a kind smile.
"That's right. Showing the history of how America completely beat France. It would've caused quite a stir, don't you think?"
"That's amazing!"
Brad burst out laughing and turned to Warren.
"Ha ha ha, it's a shame, but even so I'm thinking we might still produce a documentary, interviewing the people who took part. A way to remind the world of the greatness of American wine and of Stag's Leap."
"That sounds like it'd be fun."
Jonathan laughed, lightly tapping the meat with the knife he'd been using to cut his steak.
"It'll get an incredible response. Oh, that building in San Jose we're investing in, I went and looked at it yesterday too. The price is really cheap, isn't it? How'd you find out about it?"
"Don't even ask. The investment firm that owned the building made a bad play on derivatives and took a big loss, and Jennifer's the one who got wind of it."
"Ah! You mean that real estate management firm? They looked sharp."
"Right. And so..."
The talk of real estate went on and on. Warren found it more and more uncomfortable to keep listening. Money, real estate, and the sight of his children losing their heads over it all left a sour feeling in his gut.
"I'll excuse myself first, so eat well and stay as long as you like."
"Of course."
Having forced down the rest of his meal, Warren gave his children, engrossed in Brad Duncan, a fleeting glance and returned to his study.
"Whew..."
Sitting down and closing his eyes, Warren kneaded the stiff back of his neck. That everything he had built up to now was being reduced to mere money filled him with a frustration he couldn't put into words. And Mondavi's advice kept circling in his ears.
March. I was at the Silver Oak Farm site, checking beneath the soil with an auger. An auger was a tool with a T-shaped handle and a long metal shaft coiled into a spiral at its tip, one that bored into the earth like a screw. As I turned the steel auger and dug downward, wet loam and gravel curled up in long layers.
"Hmm... this part here didn't come out right..."
Since the heart of the To Kalon terroir was drainage, even after confirming that the gravel had been laid down densely, I went over the whole farm with an infiltrometer to check the drainage rate. That was when I'd found one spot that fell short of the standard, which was why I was checking beneath the soil.
"Do I have to redo the work...?"
As I shook my head and used the auger to check the spot where the gravel layer was lacking, an old man I'd never seen before suddenly appeared.
"Huh? What brings you out here?"
Instead of answering my question, he glanced down at the ground and asked,
"Why'd you dig up the ground?"
"I was checking the subsoil (the layer 30 to 100 cm deep from the surface)."
"What are you checking that for?"
"To see whether it drains well."
"I see."
Nodding, he looked over the other gear beside me, a portable pH meter, an EC meter, a water container, and asked,
"And what are all these?"
I had a rough idea of who the old man was. He had to be the owner of a grape farm somewhere nearby. Only the big farms had started applying SWP by now, and there were still small farms where they didn't even know what SWP was. So it wasn't anything unusual for a farm owner to be curious about why these devices were being used.
"This one's for checking acidity and salt levels. This one's to check the soil texture..."
I gestured toward the water container with my eyes and hoisted the heavy auger onto the tractor.
"You check both the topsoil (down to 30 cm from the surface) and the subsoil? All across this huge farm?"
"Come on, it's not like I check every last bit myself... I have the workers do some of the checking too."
"But you're still checking all of it, aren't you?"
"It's not like I check every meter. There's a fair bit of... spacing, sure."
I spread my arms to show how far apart, but even so the old man's quizzical expression didn't change.
"Why bother checking all of it?"
"To get good grapes out of it."
"And what is it you mean by good grapes?"
I tilted my head, then said,
"Good grapes? Hmm... sugar content (Brix), titratable acidity (TA), anthocyanin, seed maturity, skin tannin maturity, berry size... if you really dig into the specifics, there's an awful lot of it...?"
At the unexpected answer, his eyes took on a strange look.
"What did you say?"
"Why? Is that strange?"
"No... it's just, there are usual answers people give when you ask a question like that. Things like 'grapes that hide nothing and reveal the flavor the land made, just as it is', or 'grapes that speak for themselves once they become wine', or 'grapes with a taste that can only come from this land'."
"Ah..."
"Then I ask again, for specifics? And the answer gets a little more concrete. They'll say something like, you don't even need fermentation or anything, just bite the skin and the aroma bursts out, or that the acidity and sugar are naturally in balance, and when you bite into the seed you taste solid tannin instead of a green, unripe note..."
"That's true too."
"It's just that I've never met anyone who answers the way you do."
I simply nodded. It was only natural that people who farmed couldn't research and dig into the details the way I did, so a reaction like this was nothing strange.
"So what sugar content are you aiming for?"
"Between 24.5 and 26?"
"The reason?"
"But isn't this much common knowledge for everyone?"
"Some people know it, some don't. I'm curious about your answer, though."
From the look of it he seemed to already know the answer, but I decided to just humor him and give it. Information at this level was hardly anything that could be called a secret anyway.
"At that sugar level, you end up with about 13.8 to 14.8 percent alcohol after fermentation, which is the sweet spot. It's also the range where you get a balance of concentration and acidity, without overripeness or the sweetness running wild."
"Then what about the titratable acidity (the amount of sourness)?"
I took another close look at the sharp-eyed old man and shook my head.
"That's a secret."
"Huh? Why?"
"Go find that one out yourself. You shouldn't try to get someone else's knowledge that easily, for free."
"Hah... look here, do you know how many professors I know at UC Davis? One phone call and they'd answer me right away."
"Then you can just go ask those professors directly."
"I'm only asking because I'm curious whether you actually know."
"Liar."
When I shot him a skeptical look, the old man's face turned dumbfounded. And as I started packing up all my gear, he said quickly,
"It needs to come out at 5 to 7 g/L."
I spun around, startled. My exact target was 5.5 to 6.5 g/L, but that was still an answer only someone who knew what they were aiming for could have given.
"Huh? So you do know."
"Hah, you think I'm an idiot?"
"Then why'd you even ask?"
"I told you. I was curious whether you knew or not."
"Yeah, I knew."
As I turned away again, he asked yet another question.
"And the pH and anthocyanin?"
I looked at the man, who still hadn't left, and asked,
"Why do you keep trying to dig out my secrets? Even if you already know, I'm not going to tell you."
"Fine. Then let me ask just one thing. I understand the drainage in this area isn't bad, so why go to all the trouble of checking it?"
"To make it even better."
The old man, catching the important fact buried in that answer, was thoroughly astonished.
"Make it better? Are you trying to tell me you engineered the subsoil artificially?"
His reply was unexpectedly sharp, and it caught me a little off guard too.
"Wow, you caught that."
In a sense it might look like a major secret, but the truth was that artificially building up the subsoil could hardly be called one. Every worker had been mobilized to construct the subsoil in this area, so there was simply no way for anyone not to know.
The proportion of gravel, the depth of the roots, and, above all, how the organic matter was composed, those were what could truly be called the real secrets.
"Why build it up anew? This area is every bit a part of Napa Valley too, land worth just as much."
"It's good land. I don't think it's bad either. It's just to make better grapes."
"And what's a better grape..."
The old man couldn't finish his sentence. He must have remembered that I'd called my standard for good grapes a secret and refused to tell him.
I shrugged and said,
"Still, you really do know quite a lot. You must have studied a great deal."
"...A fair amount, yes."
"Don't just try to get things for free; study harder and you'll do well."
"Thanks for the advice."
"Now off you go. And don't go getting any ideas about taking soil with you."
He flinched, backed away in hesitant little steps, and then walked off into the distance. I told a worker who had just walked up to keep an eye on the man and not let him take any soil, then got on the tractor and drove off.
The thought that I'd have to redo the work sent a sudden surge of irritation through me.
*****
Join our Discord for announcements or to report any mistakes.