Chapter 145: Quiet Hill (3)
TL: Hanguk
'What on earth is this...?'
Arcadia Farm, located in Coombsville in Napa Valley, was a vineyard Warren owned personally. But its location was actually set apart from Oakville, the place they called To-Kalon, sitting off to the southeast. As far as position went, it wasn't a particularly celebrated spot.
Even so, there was only one reason Mark had his eye on it. Because it was a vineyard that none other than Warren Winiarski had spent more than ten years painstakingly cultivating.
Mark Harrington ran one of the three biggest wineries in Sonoma, and yet he still carried a hunger to do better, and the place he was aiming for was precisely Napa Valley. Because no matter how well it was made, Napa's Cabernet-driven cult wines sat at price points that were simply out of reach.
Right now there were said to be quite a few good deals, good properties on the market in Napa Valley, but from Mark's standpoint the best property of all could only be the vineyard Warren had cultivated, and just as rumor had it that Warren had set it aside, he had made his move aggressively.
And if he was making a wine better than the one right in front of him, Warren would hand the vineyard over?
It was, without question, a proposition that could only set the heart racing.
"Go on... what are you shaking about?"
Warren chuckled, took a sip of wine, wore a satisfied smile, and then brought a piece of fine cheese to his mouth.
At the sight, Mark too raised his glass to his nose and breathed in the aroma. Startled, he took a sip with trembling eyes. And Warren watched him with keen interest.
"......"
Mark Harrington froze for a while, unable to take the glass from his lips. Because even after the wine had vanished from his mouth, the sensation lingering between his tongue and gums wouldn't easily settle.
"... This isn't the feeling of Sylphide, is it?"
When he murmured it in a low voice, Warren picked up the cheese again and said,
"Your instincts aren't completely dead, then."
Before he knew it, Mark swirled the glass once more and drank.
"Usually, with a Pinot Noir this dense, it pulls you in from the very first aroma... but this is the opposite. It unfolds not in the nose but in the mouth."
"So how is it?"
Frowning slightly, Mark drew a breath as if choosing his words, then answered.
"It's uncomfortable."
At that answer, Warren nodded, as though he found it all the more interesting.
"Uncomfortable, hm... that's quite a good assessment."
"Yes. It's not an easy wine. Not friendly, either. But... strangely, I keep drinking it. I see more in the second glass than in the first."
He looked down into the glass and went on.
"The acidity doesn't jump out and the tannin doesn't come to the front, yet the structure is unmistakable. And on top of that, several new aromas keep, how should I put it, knocking at the inside of the mouth... From the quality of the Pinot Noir, it has to be from the Russian River, but I've never seen Pinot Noir handled like this."
"It's not the first time. You just don't know about it."
"... I see."
"So, your conclusion?"
Biting his lip, Mark asked.
"I'm supposed to send you the Pinot Noir that comes out of my winery, aren't I?"
"That's right. Just send me a wine you're confident in."
"......"
"You don't have one."
"Shamefully, no."
With wine, there was no single answer that could be called correct; likes and dislikes existed across countless dimensions. And yet a hierarchy of quality undeniably existed. And when the one doing the judging was Warren Winiarski, a man couldn't dare force the claim that his own was the better.
"That's a shame."
Naturally, the one left disappointed was Mark Harrington, and Warren watched his slightly contorted face with amusement. No matter that he was the owner of a thriving Sonoma winery, to Warren, Mark was little more than a child.
That was why he could read the man's inner thoughts plainly just from his face, and that was what he found so amusing.
"This must be Redwood's new brand for this year?"
"That's right. It'll come out in about a month."
"......"
"Can you tell whose grapes these are?"
He had already guessed. Because he knew which farm in the Russian River Valley Redwood had gotten its grapes from.
"These are Grendel Hill grapes."
"Ho, so you knew. I hear the farm owner there is a stubborn man, and you can feel that stubbornness right from the grapes. Once it's released, if you savor this wine over and over and compare it against your own winery's, you'll be able to draw great inspiration from it."
"Thank you. I feel I'm leaving your home today having learned a great deal."
"Offering this much advice to a junior is no hard thing."
"Then I'll be on my way. If I deplete any more of your wine, I think I'll earn your ill will."
"Hahaha! Quick on the uptake. Go on, then."
When Mark set his regret aside and left the study, Warren's smile deepened.
"Greedy bastard..."
Warren knew there were plenty of people with their eye on his vineyard. But that vineyard was simply one he wasn't touching at the moment, a place like an attic where he'd hidden his toys. Who would he sell that to?
Warren had never intended to give it away from the start.
"Still, at least he's got some self-awareness."
That much he'd grant.
Mark Harrington kept his expression perfectly composed, a faint smile playing at his lips, right up until he stepped out the front gate. But the moment he got into his car and shut the door, he sat there gripping the wheel for a long while, not a word passing his lips.
After sitting a long time with his eyes closed and saying nothing, he quietly started the engine and pulled the car out.
"Damn it..."
A curse burst out of his wretched frame of mind. The afterimage of the wine he'd just drunk wouldn't leave his head. There'd been no label, no brand, no vintage, no explanation, yet its presence was more intense than anything.
After driving for about an hour and reaching home, Mark Harrington parked in front of the house and still couldn't bring himself to get out for a while. That aroma he'd caught in the study of Warren's home, and the layer-upon-layer sensation of that Pinot, still lingered in his mouth.
But he couldn't stay like this forever, so he set his face straight as if nothing were the matter and went inside.
"Dad!"
"What brings you home at this hour?"
To his wife's question Mark answered, "No reason...", and then, seeing Sienna's beaming face, he asked,
"Why aren't you at work? What are you doing here?"
Since graduating, Sienna had been coming in to Harrington Winery. It was less the idea of putting to use what she'd learned in school, and closer to carrying out deeper research at the winery on the foundation of her studies.
Because when it came to its flagship wines, the technical capability of a winery that had already reached a certain level of quality and scale was, in some respects, better than any university's.
"I came to report that we settled on the naming today."
"Hm? Ah..."
For a moment Mark's face stiffened. The wine Harrington Winery had thrown everything into creating over nearly two years of research. The wine he'd believed would carry the next ten years of Harrington Winery's future...
They'd bundled just twelve premier barrels and held the yield down to 1.2 tons per acre, then balanced it with 40% new French oak and the rest in second-year barrels... They'd fixed the acidity at exactly 3.55, and he'd taken pride in everything being perfect.
"SOVEREIGN NOIR. What do you think? The highest authority of Pinot Noir... The name itself carries the strongest message a Pinot Noir could possibly hold, so it won by an overwhelming vote. Doesn't it suit it perfectly?"
Had he not gone to Warren's home today, Mark would have thought so too. In truth, when it came down to it, the gap wasn't all that enormous. Plenty of people would rate them as wines evenly matched enough to contend.
But he knew. The difference was subtle enough to be hard to call, and yet their value as wine was unmistakably not the same.
"Let's change the name."
At Mark's firm words, Sienna faltered.
"Why?"
"Let's go with something a little more normal than SOVEREIGN NOIR."
A brief silence passed, and the laughter drained from Sienna's face.
"Dad, don't joke around. We've settled the entire label concept, the price position, the distribution presentation, all of it around this name. You know it takes confidence for the market to respond."
Mark shook his head as he pulled off his coat and hung it over a chair.
"It's not that I don't know that. If it were purely for immediate sales, you'd be right, but..."
"Then why on earth are you doing this?"
He watched his daughter shout, then lowered his gaze, his eyes settling into a heavy calm, and dropped his voice.
"This isn't enough."
"What?"
"It's still not enough. We have to make a better Pinot Noir. Only then..."
"......?"
"Only then can we salvage our winery's honor."
Release it under a name like that and get beaten by a wine with an ordinary name, how humiliating would that be? And what if, of all people, the opponent was that old man from Grendel Hill? The strength was already draining from his limbs at the thought. So Mark made up his mind to pull the emphasis away from the naming.
But that was Mark's thinking; his daughter Sienna had no idea why her father was behaving this way.
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. Harrington Estate Pinot Noir. Or something plain like Riverbend. And let's take another look at the harvest timing. This year we focused on stabilizing the acidity, but there's still room on seed maturity. Let's experiment with whole-cluster fermentation on 10% of the total lots, and divide the extraction more finely too. We'll split the fermentation tanks by size as well."
Something about her father's face, hunted somehow and yet weighed down, made Sienna realize there was a reason he couldn't put into words.
"Haah... All right. You want to make a better Pinot, is that it?"
"Yes."
"Then let's change the name. But in exchange, the next brand..."
Mark smiled.
"That time, you name it."
Father and daughter looked at each other without a word.
That night, the lights of Harrington Winery didn't go out until late.
The next day.
On a morning when the fog peculiar to the Russian River Valley hung low, I drove in along the narrow access road that ran between the vineyards. Far removed from any glamour, this place, perhaps because of its mysterious and beautiful natural surroundings, had a way of putting a person's heart at ease.
When I arrived in front of the farm and got out of the car, the old man standing at the doorway slowly lifted his head, leaning on his cane.
Elias Grendel, the farm owner who had raised grapes on this hill for more than half a century.
"You came."
A short, plain greeting. I bowed my head in greeting, then carefully lifted out a long wooden box.
"I've come to harvest the grapes. A little late, aren't I?"
"The weather ran a touch chilly this year, so there's nothing strange about the harvest coming a bit late. Besides, it's your call to make, so what would I have to say about it?"
"Let's head inside first."
When I stepped into the warehouse-like office of Grendel Hill Farm, a cozy but musty air met me.
"What's that?"
"It's a wine made from the grapes you gave me."
For an instant, Elias's eyes wavered. And, staring intently at the wooden box that must have held the wine, he asked,
"The release is faster than I expected?"
"For Pinot Noir, a year is enough."
"Is that Redwood's technical prowess?"
"Yes."
Sitting slowly down into an old chair, Elias told an employee to bring wine glasses and an opener. I set the box on the table and opened the lid. From inside, a single bottle revealed itself.
On the label, a name written in a clean, unadorned typeface.
QUIET HILL
He gazed at the label, its restrained design showing a very faint hill silhouette against a warm ivory tone, a faint smile at his lips.
Like a man reading not the letters but the story held within them.
"... It's a good name. This hill has always been quiet, that much is true."
"I'm glad it's to your liking. I hope the wine will be too. Go on, give it a taste. For reference, I bottled this one three weeks ahead, in case it wouldn't stabilize after bottling."
"Oh ho, is that so?"
"As for the label, I've only just filed the application, so it'll take close to a month for the approval to come through and for it to be released."
"You meant to handle it all in this one visit, since coming twice is a bother?"
"I've just been so busy, you see."
"Hahaha, that's right. A man who ought to be at his busiest has to spend his time sparingly."
Nodding with a laugh, he held the wine I'd poured up to the sunlight. After holding the clear ruby color to the light and taking in its aroma once, he closed his eyes, then presently took a sip.
"Mmm..."
Quietly savoring the wine and letting its finish linger to the full, he calmly looked straight into my eyes. And in a low voice, he said,
"Thank you."
"......"
"Thank you very much."
By now the rims of his eyes had reddened a little.
*****
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