Chapter 126: Assistant (4)
TL: Hanguk
A week had passed since Warren joined Redwood, but the aftershocks were slow to settle. The place feeling the greatest impact from the ripples was UC Davis, an institution with enormous sway over the region and its agriculture. For local residents, the talk would run its course as people chatted among acquaintances and that would be the end of it, but for the university's professors and students, it was the kind of topic that could easily keep circulating for years.
Then the mystery was finally laid bare through a magazine called Wine Observer Magazine.
《Special Column - Warren Winiarski, Why Did He Go to Redwood?》
In the column, he confessed that while he had achieved remarkable things over the past fifty years, his passion had been cooling as he grew older. Then one day he met and talked with the young owner of a small Napa winery, and captivated by the man's vision and fresh perspective, he had recovered the passion he'd thought lost for good.
"What? He got his lost passion back? Saw his own youth in the guy? Is this for real?"
Reading the magazine in the living room with a dumbfounded look, Jonathan glanced around for agreement. His older brother Andrew, Brad Cooper of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, and Alessandro Bellini of Marchesi Antinori all wore the same baffled expression.
"That's exactly the question we'd like to ask. The way he talks, as if there's some winery greater than Stag's Leap... frankly, I find it off-putting."
Alessandro Bellini, leaning back against the sofa with his legs crossed, looked like a model with his long legs and handsome face, but that face was set hard. Seeing it, the two brothers grew anxious for no good reason.
The deal was already done and the money had changed hands, so it wasn't that they feared the sale falling through; rather, a misunderstanding leading to a lawsuit would be a real headache, and they had to head it off as best they could.
Andrew spoke with an awkward smile.
"Let's not look at it so negatively. If anything, isn't it as good as a declaration that my father won't run off to some other winery and put Stag's Leap's wine blending to use there?"
It was true. In fact, if one analyzed the magazine interview carefully, it came down to this: the only way to drink the wines he had made in the past was to buy and drink the wines released by Stag's Leap. And neither Brad nor Alessandro, both present, were blind to that.
The problem lay in the fact that the explanation itself was even more galling.
"I understand that much... but as a result of this interview, wine lovers are now more eager for Redwood's wines than for Stag's Leap. The Stag's Leap we paid a hundred and eighty million dollars for is about to be worth dirt."
Brad's icy glare threw the two brothers off for a moment. They had always been close, practically like brothers themselves, so they had no idea how to respond to this sudden change in him.
Just then, the sound of footsteps reached them. The irregular, unhurried gait made it clear who they belonged to even before the man came into view.
"Father!"
Just as the two sons had hoped, Warren came walking in slowly, gave the guests a quick glance, and spoke as he passed through the living room.
"The purchase is already complete, yet you keep coming around. There's nothing left for you to gain here."
At that, as if he'd been waiting for it, Brad spoke in an irritated tone.
"I saw the magazine interview. I can respect the passion of a man your age who still has something he wants to learn, but even so, isn't this going too far?"
"Too far?"
Warren's face hardened in an instant and his glare bored in, but Brad didn't look away; instead he dropped his voice even lower.
"The way you explained yourself has thrown those of us who acquired Stag's Leap into confusion. Something to learn... something to learn, you say... hahaha! You really do leave a man bewildered. And from some Asian kid who isn't even out of college yet, no less."
Even as Brad, unable to believe it, burst out laughing, Warren's hardened expression refused to soften.
"So you think I'm lying."
"There's no way it could be true!"
Warren watched the man work himself up and lifted one corner of his mouth. He had found it utterly insufferable watching Brad try so hard to win over his two sons, so seeing him squirm now gave Warren a private surge of satisfaction.
"Strange. Sooner or later, once you see the wines we release, you'll know whether or not my techniques went into them, won't you?"
"I understand you've made up your mind not to leak Stag's Leap's techniques. But can't you see that the way you explained yourself has eaten away at Stag's Leap's value?"
At that, Warren's eyes snapped open like a tiger's, and he roared.
"Nonsense! Don't any of you delude yourselves!"
"......"
Warren swept his gaze over the people seated on the living room sofa, Brad flinching among them, and spoke crisply, every word deliberate.
"The Stag's Leap I've built up all these years isn't so flimsy that a single word from me could chip away at it. Even if I came down with dementia and couldn't recognize my own children's faces, Stag's Leap's value would hold. So long as you keep running the system I built exactly as it stands... So stop trying to wring anything more out of me and go do your jobs at your own companies. And..."
He turned to Alessandro and rebuked him.
"I can grant that Ste. Michelle, whose bread and butter is everyday wine, might not understand fine wine, but I can't fathom you, an Antinori man, joining in on this."
At the suggestion that Brad Cooper might be excused for not knowing better, but surely not him as well, Brad's face flushed red. And Alessandro lowered his head with an uncomfortable look.
"Honestly, the contents of the magazine seemed so absurd that I wondered whether you, sir, were deliberately trying to put us in a difficult spot."
"Hah! Whatever for? And if I'd truly meant to do that, do you think I'd have gone to that little winery? If I'd set my mind from the start on tormenting one side or the other, I'd have dumped the hundred-dollar wine stacked up in my warehouse onto the market at thirty."
Brad, who knew exactly what that meant, bit his lip. In plain terms, it meant that if Warren had wanted to, he could have wiped out a company like Ste. Michelle in a single blow.
"Do you think I have that kind of time on my hands? Do you think my life is so trivial? Tsk, tsk, tsk..."
"If I've misjudged you, I sincerely apologize. We at Marchesi Antinori will preserve the Stag's Leap you built as faithfully as we can, and we will keep the brand alive and grow it."
"Hmph... I'd be grateful if you did."
Alessandro of Antinori watched Warren's retreating back with a bitter expression, then rose from his seat.
"I'll be going now."
Realizing he'd come here for nothing, he walked off without even acknowledging the two brothers' farewells. Brad, on the other hand, fought down the anger surging up in him and addressed the two brothers.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't assume Mr. Warren's words have made us believe that magazine interview. In the end, he never clearly explained away an interview that makes no sense. I should make it perfectly clear that whatever wine comes out of Redwood will determine how we move from here."
Having issued that warning, he swept out without waiting for a reply.
"Damn it... so the winery's in their hands now, is that it?"
"Forget it. Nothing to worry about. Father'll handle it."
"But the San Jose real estate's starting to look pretty serious too, isn't it?"
At his older brother Andrew's worry, Jonathan shrugged.
"So what? It's just a blip. Honestly, it works out for us. If the market hadn't gotten shaky, do you think we could've bought that building for a hundred million dollars?"
Finding his younger brother's point reasonable, Andrew nodded.
"That's true enough... it just makes me uneasy."
"The ones who should be uneasy are the people who bought homes. And it's precisely in times like these, when everyone's nervous, that people like us get our chance. The chance to grab up cheap real estate."
As a fierce hunger flickered in his younger brother's eyes, Andrew slowly found himself swept up in it too.
"When you put it that way, a falling market is nothing to worry about."
"As it happens, I'm already looking at a few more buildings. You know Fabian, the real estate agent? My buddy down in LA."
"Ah...!"
"He recommended a few prime buildings going cheap. Take a look."
Andrew started poring over the catalog his brother had brought along. Before they knew it, the two of them had completely forgotten the worries that had been weighing on them only moments before.
The fallout from the magazine interview reached Redwood too, but it died down before long. After all, it's human nature: the heart flutters at the chance sight of someone rarely seen, and it's hard to keep it pounding for someone in view every single day.
Since Warren was clocking in at the winery every day, my dad and the workers had grown used to him and stopped giving it much thought. If he was out in the vineyard or down in the aging cellar, they just figured he was getting on with his work and didn't even bother to wonder about it.
I felt the same. Working alongside someone who, before I came back in time, had been regarded as something of a legend felt incredibly fresh and exciting at first, but as the days went on he became just another colleague I happened to work beside.
"Kenaz Vineyards, 2004 Merlot Barrel? Is this one you brought in a while back?"
His eyes lit up as he spotted the barrel stored so carefully among the stacked oak in the aging cellar.
"That's right. I picked it up at auction, two years back or so."
"Kenaz Vineyards isn't exactly a famous name. What did you pay for it?"
"Three hundred dollars a case?"
Maybe it was the trifling price, but Warren's brow furrowed.
"Three hundred dollars? That's all?"
"The price was low, but back then it couldn't have gone any other way. The flavor hadn't woken up yet."
"Ohh~ is that so?"
He stroked the oak barrel, then looked over at me with a wide grin.
"Mind if I taste it?"
"Of course. I was going to let you try it anyway."
"From now on, when you've got something like this, I'd appreciate hearing about it before I have to dig it up myself."
"I keep telling you, I was going to..."
Using the wine thief, I drew some wine into a glass and handed it to him. Warren's face was already hardening at the deep aroma of the Merlot, fresh from the barrel. He swirled the glass a few times to coax out a little more of the bouquet, then, with a grave look, took a mouthful and closed his eyes. And then,
"Insane... a Merlot this deeply concentrated..."
"It wasn't anything like this back then, which is why everyone passed it over. It was very rough. Thanks to that, I got lucky and snapped it up."
"How were you so sure? The other wineries aren't fools either; by any ordinary standard, they wouldn't have let this slip past them."
He asked with the look of a man who'd just stumbled onto the most fascinating thing in the world.
"I checked the polyphenol index and the color density. Once I confirmed the polyphenol index was over 70, I made up my mind to take it no matter what, so long as the price came in under a thousand dollars a case."
"The polyphenol index was over 70...? Haha, of course. So you checked that before the auction."
Even at this point in time, a handful of large, high-end wineries already understood what effect the polyphenol index had on wine. Naturally, a place like Stag's Leap would hardly have been ignorant of this kind of data-driven analytical blending.
That said, knowing it and trying to put it to use was one thing; actually staking a bid on that number alone at a real auction was another matter entirely.
"So this is what it means to make wine with data...?"
He had already resolved to learn Redwood Winery's own particular methods, yet experiencing the wonder of it firsthand once more, he marveled all over again.
"I'm planning to blend this with this year's Cabernet Sauvignon from our farm, weighing it against the Cabernet from the farm we just acquired."
"You've already worked out a fair bit, I take it?"
"And you, sir?"
"Me...? Oh, plenty comes to mind."
The wines he had released over his career were beyond counting. So even with just this one Merlot, a dozen or more different combinations came to him right where he sat.
"Since I obviously can't use the methods I worked with at Stag's Leap, if I think purely in terms of your winery's wines, there'd be a pattern like folding fifteen percent Merlot into an Echelon-style Cabernet, or you could even blend a little Pinot Noir into this."
"You've thought it through that far already?"
"I don't even have to try; it just comes to me."
He gave a quick flick of his fingers past his head, as if a bird had darted by, and grinned.
"Haha, that's impressive."
"It's nothing. So, what did you have in mind?"
I took out my notebook and opened it to a page I'd jotted down some time ago. Warren read through what was on it and knit his brow.
"Twenty-two percent Merlot? Heh heh... and on top of that, you mean to use this much Cabernet Franc?"
"Is that strange?"
"It is strange... it's going to come off heavy on the grassy notes, you understand. But if you wrote it down, you must have a reason?"
"Hmm... this is where I could use your help, sir. Would you happen to know of a winery that sells a decent Cabernet Franc?"
He stared at me blankly, then spoke with a look of disbelief.
"Oh, I know one. In fact... I'd say I know it better than anyone."
"Perfect. Would you mind showing me the way?"
Warren downed the Merlot in one go, gave me a wink, and said,
"All right. But you've got a bottle of that Echelon you keep hidden away and won't sell, haven't you? Bring out just the one. He's not the sort of fellow who'll give you the time of day without a bribe."
*****
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