Chapter 151: Astra Vale (5)
TL: Hanguk
In the conference room at the heart of Napa Valley's Stags Leap District, a heavy silence hung in the air.
Beyond the windows, the vineyards stretched out peacefully as the harvest neared its end, but inside, the air was stretched so taut it seemed ready to explode at any moment.
At the center of the table sat a single bottle of wine, its label depicting a valley beneath a cascade of stars. Astra Vale. It was the controversial new release that Redwood Winery had unveiled with great fanfare, summoning VIPs from every walk of life for its debut.
Brad Duncan, Vice President of Michel Wine, thumbed through a stack of documents with a hardened expression. A textbook white elite in his mid-forties, he had harbored a single suspicion ever since acquiring Stag's Leap. That after leaving, Warren might leak Stag's Leap's secrets to outsiders.
"It hasn't even been half a year since Warren Winiarski went over to Redwood. And they've already put out something like this? That's physically impossible at this speed."
Brad spat the words out in a cold voice. Across from him sat Alessandro Bellini, president of the Antinori family, the storied Italian wine dynasty. Dressed in a refined Italian suit, he was carefully turning his glass in his hand.
"It's suspicious, sure... but for Warren to knowingly ignore the clauses in his contract and blatantly use Stag's Leap's own proprietary blending recipe, that just doesn't sit right... The man's no fool."
"But there's no other explanation. Isn't he the old man who guarded Stag's Leap's identity for over thirty years? A cult-tier wine coming out of a fledgling winery like Redwood, that's just another way of saying they cleaned out our vault."
Brad's gaze turned to the man seated at the far end of the table. It was Robert Vance, Michel Wine's in-house legal counsel and an intellectual property specialist attorney.
"Robert, are the composition analysis and the legal response documents ready?"
"All prepared, sir. If the analysis shows that the key chemical indicators and the blend composition ratios match by 70% or more, we can immediately file an injunction for trade secret misappropriation and freeze Redwood's logistics. 70% is the decisive figure the courts recognize as deliberate imitation."
President Alessandro raised a hand lightly to stop him.
"Before we start swinging the legal sword, let's confirm the essence first. Whether Warren's hand touched this or not, my tongue will know before anything else."
Enzo, Alessandro's head winemaker, carefully drew the cork. With a dull pop, the wine flowed into the decanter. As the deep ruby liquid slid smoothly down the glass walls, the conference room door opened quietly, and a researcher handed Vice President Brad Duncan a thick document envelope before disappearing.
It was the [Astra Vale Precise Composition Analysis], freshly pulled from the lab moments ago. But Brad did not open it. He wanted to test his own senses before the data.
Everyone in the conference room held their breath. Enzo courteously handed glasses to Alessandro and Brad.
Brad Duncan swirled his glass roughly and inhaled the aroma. He knew Warren Winiarski's style better than anyone. Restrained acidity, elegant structure, and a long finish. Expecting that classic fragrance that had built Stag's Leap's glory, he took a mouthful of the wine.
But in that instant, Brad's eyes wavered wildly.
"What... is this?"
Unable even to swallow, he focused, bewildered, on the sensation at the tip of his tongue. Beside him, President Alessandro also furrowed his brow. Sensing that something was wrong, Enzo poured himself a separate glass, inhaled the aroma, and let it rest on his palate. His brow immediately creased sharply, but he did not dare to speak first.
At last, Alessandro murmured in a hollow voice.
"Brad, this... this isn't Warren's way."
"That can't be... surely Stag's Leap's proportions have to be mixed in..."
"You felt it too, didn't you. That it's different."
Alessandro murmured in a hollow voice. Only then did Brad sense that something had gone wrong, and he snatched up the document envelope he had tossed onto the table, tearing it open.
"Robert! Check the numbers! How much does it overlap with the Stag's Leap recipe?"
Attorney Robert Vance hastily flipped to the first page of the analysis, and then his face went white as he pointed a finger at one spot.
"Sir, this indicator... the key chemical markers don't even match ours by 40%. The tannin's degree of polymerization is more than double that of our flagship wine, and the pH concentration was set differently from the very design stage."
Brad snatched the analysis away as if he couldn't believe it. That unidentifiable modern perfection he had felt while tasting was laid out before his eyes as numbers. Enzo scanned the phenolic compound graph at the bottom of the analysis over Brad's shoulder and murmured softly.
"This is a choice Warren would never have made. Look here. As Columbia Valley's Petit Verdot is blended in, the very skeleton of the tannin traces a completely different trajectory from Stag's Leap's. Warren's stubbornness and orthodoxy could never have accepted this kind of departure..."
Enzo continued, unable to tear his eyes from the analysis.
"This wasn't made by looking at a leaked recipe. It's a fortress wall built on entirely different physical laws from the ground up. There isn't even 1% of grounds to claim replication in court, let alone 70%."
Brad Duncan stared blankly, the hand holding the analysis trembling. If the shock he'd felt on his tongue was a descriptive impression, then the analysis just handed to him was like a student who had checked his grades and found a failing mark.
The air in the conference room turned cold in an instant. Unable to contain his boiling anger, Brad slammed the desk.
"Then what the hell is Warren doing over there? Are you telling me he's just sitting there as a decoration?"
"No, sir."
Enzo swirled the wine remaining in his glass once more and answered quietly.
"If you recall the interview Warren gave with a magazine when he joined Redwood... perhaps he's learning."
"Learning? That legendary old man, from whom?"
"From Redwood's Brian Choi. At the time, Warren said, 'I joined Redwood because I was captivated by the vision and the new perspective Brian Choi possesses, and I recovered a passion I thought I'd lost'. Looking at this wine, it seems to reveal what that vision and new perspective he spoke of really are. Perhaps Warren laid this young genius's precise technical mastery on top of his own seasoned instincts. And perhaps the result of that is this very 'Astra Vale'."
President Alessandro sank deep into his chair. He felt as if the philosophy the Antinori family had upheld for centuries, that "wine is a gift from God", was crumbling.
"Brad, let's give up on the legal measures. If we take this wine to court, we'll only end up advertising Redwood's genius for them."
"So you're telling me to just take it lying down? The big money in New York and London is already on the move. There's a rumor going around that Viktor Karlov, who attended yesterday's tasting, paid for 100 cases on the spot. Our flagship wine's standing is being shaken!"
Brad Duncan's voice was thick with a sense of crisis. $450 a bottle. Redwood was trying to leap over, in a single release, the fortress wall Warren had spent decades painstakingly building to raise Stag's Leap's brand value.
No, looking at the details, they might as well have leapt over it already. That was why President Alessandro, even convinced that Warren had done nothing wrong, still wore a hardened expression.
"......"
"The release price of CASK 23, Stag's Leap's very top-tier wine, is $300, while the release price of Redwood's Astra Vale is $450. At this rate, before long, something on the level of the $1,000 Screaming Eagle or Harlan Estate could come out."
Both Screaming Eagle and Harlan Estate were located in Oakville's To Kalon district and were regarded as the finest wineries in Napa Valley. Among them, Stan Kroenke, who owned Screaming Eagle, was also famous as the owner of England's Premier League club Arsenal FC. In truth, he was considered a heavyweight in the wine industry as well, a tycoon who owned the ultimate top-tier winery in each region.
"So what do you propose we do?"
"We have to pressure the distribution network."
Brad's eyes glinted as he went on.
"We contact the major wine distributors and, even if we have to threaten them, tell them that any distributor who takes Redwood's product will be cut off from their Stag's Leap limited-edition allocations. And finding out where Columbia Valley's Petit Verdot is being supplied from and buying up the contract rights to that vineyard ourselves would be another way."
President Alessandro looked out at the peaceful vineyards beyond the window and gave a bitter smile. It felt like watching the limits of Michel Wine, a company that had dominated the American market with wines costing barely $30 or less.
"Brad, you still don't get it. A guy who can make wine at this level isn't going to stop just because you block one or two supply sources. Let's just leave it at this."
He tossed the last of the Astra Vale in his glass into his mouth. The taut tension and silken texture filling his mouth... it felt like the omen of a great storm about to arrive.
"Just get ready for this year's San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. It's going to be a battlefield."
As President Alessandro left his seat irritably, Vice President Brad Duncan, who had spearheaded the acquisition of Stag's Leap, bit his lip.
At the same time, Redwood Winery.
Swamped with the launch of Cerasia, I was taking a call from Christopher. His voice, coming through the receiver, was brimming with delight.
"Brian! It's already pandemonium. The Hedonism wine shop in London is clamoring to prepay for 500 cases. I've heard from Macy's in Hong Kong too. It's almost a shame that our limited-allocation policy means we can only give them 10 cases each. Word has already spread big time among wine lovers with a bit of money to throw around!"
I turned my head and looked at Warren, who was just walking out of the aging cellar. Watching him sip the freshly drawn brandy sample and grin, anyone might have mistaken him for a common drunk.
"Still, if 10 cases is a lot..."
"Absolutely. Giving one place 120 bottles of a wine like this is practically a privilege. There's nothing for you to worry about, Brian."
"Right. I trust Christopher will handle it well. Then I'll be counting on you for the San Francisco Chronicle this time too."
"Of course. Hahaha!"
When I hung up after hearing his hearty laughter, Warren came ambling into the office.
"Hey, Master. From what I hear, things are getting pretty noisy out there. Stag's Leap's new owners seem to be foaming at the mouth, wondering whether I leaked something. Word is they're going on about legal measures and whatnot."
"There shouldn't be anything for them to point to, though?"
"Hmph, exactly. How would those stiff-headed people ever understand that it's just my advice added to your blending method? They're probably sitting there right now wondering whether their own tongues are broken."
He took a sip of the brandy in his glass and narrowed his eyes.
"But why isn't the kid who's supposed to inherit this coming?"
"Haha, he'll be here soon."
Speak of the devil, in the distance beyond the farm a gray pickup truck could be seen approaching.
"There he is, the kid who's going to inherit the master's secret weapon."
*****
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