Chapter 129: A Piece Toward Completion (3)
TL: Hanguk
Washington State's Columbia Valley, lying a full 1,180 km north of Napa Valley, sat close to the border between Canada and the United States. It was about 150 km from Seattle, the largest city in the American Northwest, which meant that getting there from Napa was too far to drive; flying was simply the sensible choice. Driving would have meant more than thirteen hours behind the wheel.
Given that the straight-line distance from Seoul to Busan is only about 320 km, it was easy to picture just how far that distance was.
If I brought Petit Verdot in from somewhere outside California, I wouldn't be able to put "Product of California" on the label, but that didn't bother me in the slightest. It was a cult wine, and as long as I could raise the quality at a low price, I didn't care where the grapes came from.
And so we arrived at Sacramento International Airport to catch an early-morning flight... and watching Warren climb out of the back seat of a Rolls-Royce, I said,
"Uh... isn't this a little out of place?"
"At my age, if I don't ride in a decent car, my back and my backside ache. When you've got the money, you owe it to yourself to ride in something like this."
"Ah, right..."
The flight was business class, of course, and the moment Warren settled into his seat, he asked, perfectly at ease,
"What wines do you have?"
"A small amount of 2004 California Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2005 Washington Merlot, and for sparkling, Korbel Brut. It's a short flight, so we don't have many options."
"I'll have a glass of the Washington Merlot, please. Today's the day we go to taste Washington, after all. And what'll our master have?"
I gave him a rather puzzled look and said,
"We'll be landing soon, and you still want wine?"
"Wine you enjoy up in the sky is a different thing altogether. Go on, have one."
Since Warren had ordered, it felt awkward to just sit there.
"I'll have the same, then."
"Of course."
Once the flight attendant had moved away, Warren said,
"That's the look of someone wondering why I'd drink cheap wine."
"Honestly, I am a little curious. I doubt you ordered it just to get your money's worth out of a business-class seat."
"Hahaha! Well, thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. Like you said, on a short domestic route like this, the wine they roll around on the cart is often some bulk-bought corporate OEM, and a lot of the time it's an airline-exclusive label with no particular winery named on it. But I still always order wine. Setting the mood is a small part of it, sure, but more than anything, this is about the only chance I get to drink cheap wine."
"So you're saying you drink it precisely because it's cheap?"
"Exactly. Wine isn't like mathematics, where there's one fixed right answer. So I live as though I'm forever exploring some imaginary ocean. Aroma, structure, the finish... I'm always imagining which elements, combined in which way, will produce the most exceptional result. And after a while, I start to feel like my feet have floated off the ground."
"You mean you lose touch with reality."
"Exactly. There are moments when I catch myself thinking, 'What am I even making here?' And when that happens, drinking a daily wine that costs under thirty dollars can clear my head. 'Ah, so this is what people pay thirty dollars for,' I think. And just like that, my feet are back on the ground, and I can rein in the thoughts that had run too far ahead."
Just then, the flight attendant brought the wine. Smiling, Warren took his glass and had a light sip.
When I took a sip of mine as well, a sweet red-fruit aroma rose up, and at the same time a faint herbal note brushed past.
"Huh? This is better than I expected. There's none of that spreading sweetness Merlot usually has, and the finish is short, which honestly makes it perfect for drinking on a plane."
"There you have it. See? This right here is one of life's pleasures. Stumbling onto unexpected joy in the last place you'd think to look."
"I see what you mean."
Feeling there was a great deal to learn from him, I nodded, then asked,
"How did you come to hear about the place we're heading to now?"
"That? That would have been... 1998, I believe. There was an international seminar called the Vinorum Symposium, held just outside Florence. Antinori hosted it, and winemakers from all over Europe were there."
It seemed to amuse him to dredge up the old memory; a broad smile lingered at the corners of his mouth.
"That day there was a tasting on the theme of 'The Diversification of New World Wines'... and honestly, the whole lineup was exactly what you'd expect. Napa, Sonoma, Chile, Argentina... But then an Italian professor came up to me and, very discreetly, recommended a single wine. And as it turned out, it was an American wine. I thought I knew American wines... not all of them, mind you, but all the good ones, and yet here was one I'd never imagined."
"And that's the Washington wine we're on our way to now?"
"That's right. When I saw 'Columbia Valley, Washington' printed on the label, at first I had to wonder whether I was reading it correctly. And the friend who'd recommended it to me had a pretty discerning palate, at that. On top of which, Petit Verdot, a grape they treat as a hidden supporting player in a Bordeaux blend, bottled all on its own? And in Washington, no less? None of it was easy to believe."
Watching him, I realized Warren was a fine storyteller, but he was also quite the talker. Which made me think how happy he would have been if his own children had taken an interest in grapes and wine. How much must he have longed to say to them?
Or maybe it was the other way around: that he had so much he'd wanted to tell them but couldn't, and he was letting it all out here instead.
"Oh... and then what?"
"I went straight off to find the wine he'd recommended and tasted it. The Petit Verdot I drank that day was... a little shocking, I'll tell you."
"Shocking how?"
When I asked, Warren's eyes lit up, and he lowered his voice as he spoke.
"Petit Verdot usually ripens late, and it's dark and firm. So even on the Left Bank of Bordeaux it's hard to bring to full ripeness, and in cool years it tends to keep a green, unripe edge. But that glass had none of that. Black plum, violet, plum blossom, and an acidity that wasn't the least bit heavy... and above all, the tannins weren't harsh; they were smooth as oil. I'd hardly ever seen Petit Verdot's knife-edge tannins tamed like that. Do you happen to know about the Left Bank and Right Bank of Bordeaux?"
"I do. Where the Garonne and the Dordogne rivers meet, they form the Gironde estuary, and from that point, the west side is called the Left Bank and the east side the Right Bank."
"And their characteristics?"
"On the Left Bank, the dominant style is powerful and structured, built around Cabernet Sauvignon, while the Right Bank leans toward a softer, more deeply flavored style centered on Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Isn't that right?"
Warren gave a satisfied smile.
"You really don't slack off on your studying. I half expected you might not know it, not being American and all. Then again, it's not all that important a point. In any case, drinking that wine made me do a fair bit of soul-searching. I learned that sometimes the supporting player can become the lead. But it's such a polarizing wine that it still hasn't won much popular acclaim, which is a shame."
I'd wondered how he knew about the place, and it turned out there was quite a memorable story behind it.
"I see... so you've met the owner of the winery as well?"
"Of course I have. This friend we're on our way to meet is a bit of an odd one, too. Or, to put it another way... it's precisely because of that oddness that they were able to make a wine like this."
"Odd in what way?"
"For one thing... this friend absolutely hates seeing Petit Verdot treated as a supporting player in a Bordeaux blend. Even in Bordeaux, the variety gets treated as Cabernet Sauvignon's shadow. Adding color, adding tannin, propping up the structure. But this friend rejected all of that head-on, from start to finish. Needless to say, those French bastards were aghast to hear it."
He grinned, took a sip of his wine, and went on. There was a subtle pride in that smile, the sort that comes from boasting about someone else's child.
"That's how firm a philosophy this friend had about the wine. As for the details, you can experience them for yourself when we get there."
The way he described it only made me more curious. After a flight of about two hours, we arrived at Tri-Cities Airport, climbed into the rental car we'd arranged in advance, and drove for over an hour before reaching our destination.
"Warren!"
Perhaps because we'd let them know we were coming, a woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties was waiting to greet us at the entrance to the winery. Tall, with bright curly hair, she had the kind of presence that lifted the mood of anyone who so much as looked at her.
"It's been a while."
"I'm glad you're looking well."
"I'm still in one piece, for now."
"I saw the magazine. I thought it had to be nonsense, but..."
She glanced once at me, trailing behind, then spoke to Warren in a low voice.
"So it was real?"
"It's no lie."
"Good heavens... so he really is like that?"
"You'd never guess from the outside. But there's something inside that head of his every bit as strange as what's in yours."
"Oh~ is that so?"
She gave me a startled look, then came over and held out her hand.
"I'm Miriam Cole."
"Brian Choi."
"I don't know how this old man here introduced me, but I'm really not all that much of an eccentric."
"He didn't introduce you as anything strange. He told an old story about how he was quite astonished the first time he drank your wine, Miriam."
She looked at Warren, taken aback.
"He seems perfectly normal, though?"
"When I first met you, I thought you were odd, but now that I've met this one, you actually start to look normal by comparison."
I was wondering just how strange she must have been for him to say such a thing, when Warren looked at me and added,
"As it turns out, this one wasn't originally a farmer at all. An applied mathematician, was it?"
"Hoho, that's right."
"You used to be a mathematician?"
When I asked, startled, she waved a hand as if it were nothing.
"That's ancient history. Shall we go in?"
We followed her into the winery. Trailing behind her, Warren said,
"I was quite taken aback when I first met her, but as time went on and we moved into the 2000s, data analysts with backgrounds in agriculture and engineering started coming into the wine business. Even among the UC Davis crowd, the number who'd crossed over from math or engineering grew quite a bit."
My curiosity piqued, I asked,
"So what method do you use for growing your grapes?"
Walking ahead of us, she turned to look back and smiled.
"It used to be a bit different, but for the past few years I've been using the Growing Degree Days (GDD) method."
"Ah..."
"You know it?"
"Yes. It's an index that expresses, as a number, the heat the grapes actually put toward growth over the course of a year, the heat accumulation."
Grapes ripen a great deal in hot weather and barely at all when it's cool. GDD could be described as an index that quantified exactly that, mathematically.
"I can see why Warren thinks so highly of you."
She walked straight over and stood before the dozens of oak barrels arranged in the aging cellar.
"I'm worried Warren may have praised me a bit too much... but I don't think you'll be disappointed."
It sounded modest, but the words were steeped in pride for her own wine. So was her expression. From her calm, composed eyes, I sensed a steadiness that wouldn't be much shaken even by a harsh review.
The red wine, drawn into the glass with a wine thief, hit my nose with a deep aroma before anything else. When I took a sip, it felt soft, and I thought I finally understood what Warren had meant when he said the tannins weren't harsh but smooth as oil.
"Wow!"
When the sound burst out of me, she gave a quick, puffing laugh.
"You like it?"
"I've honestly never experienced a Petit Verdot like this before."
"Everyone's only interested in the famous ones, like Pinot Noir, so they pay less attention to my wine, but I don't think the quality is the least bit lower."
Her pride really was something. And yet, knowing just how much pride she had, I found it hard to come out and say I wanted to use her wine as only one component of my blend.
But then,
"Warren here already told me about it. You're making the finest Cabernet Sauvignon blend, I hear?"
"Sorry?"
I wondered what on earth he'd made it sound like, but on the other hand, when I thought about it again, it would have been a little strange for Warren to be asking on my behalf if it weren't something on that level.
"Just don't expect me to sell it cheap, though."
The fact that she'd part with it at all, wasn't that something? Before she could say anything else, I answered quickly.
"Thank you. So, how much...?"
I was glad I'd held off on spending and saved my money. If it were up to my heart alone, I'd have carted off every last oak barrel in that aging cellar.
*****
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