Chapter 21: Water and Grapes (1)
TL: Hanguk
A large truck arrived at the farm.
“It’s here, it’s here! Are the numbers checked?”
Dad’s face, having gotten up at dawn to prepare, was filled with joy.
“Yes, I confirmed 5,000 bottles.”
“Good, you did well. I’ll check the invoice and bring it out.”
Next to me, Armando and Jacob were collapsed, utterly exhausted. These guys too had been out since dawn moving boxes.
Of course, Mom and I had not been resting either. We spent days repeatedly filling bottles with the vinegar stored in the tanks and closing the lids. Even using semi-automatic bottling equipment, it still required human hands, so Mom had a very hard time.
“All ready?”
At some point, Mr. John Anderson, having gotten off the truck, looked at the mountain-like stacks of boxes piled in front of the farm and smiled with satisfaction.
“Yes.”
“You’ve worked hard. All 300 bottles sold out in a single day, and Bristol Farms must have thought this would sell too, since they’re urging us to deliver as quickly as possible. They said the response at the food and beverage event was very good.”
“Ah...”
At that moment, Dad, who had carefully checked whether there were any issues with the bottles inside the boxes, approached and shook hands with John.
“Please take good care of us.”
“I should be the one saying that.”
He loaded the vinegar boxes onto the truck together with me, my friends, and Dad, and then immediately wrote a check for 17,500 dollars. This was 50% of the payment, and for large transactions over ten thousand dollars, a 50% advance payment was mandatory.
At first, he had shown reluctance, but in the end, acknowledging Dad’s argument that he knew the situation was difficult and was not confident he could receive the payment at the end of the month and give all that money to us, he accepted the 50% advance payment.
“Where is it going? Could it be Macy’s Department Store?”
Mr. John Anderson nodded after checking the invoice, which served as proof that we had delivered the goods.
“Yes, I heard that a thousand bottles alone are scheduled to go into Macy’s Department Store.”
“That many?”
“They seem to think that consumption of high-end food ingredients can be fast.”
“That’s a shame. If we had gotten organic certification, we could have charged at least twice this price.”
“Organic? Are you really trying to get organic certification?”
“Yes.”
At my calm answer, he stared at me with a dazed expression and then asked,
“Do you know how difficult and demanding that is?”
“We’re already doing everything organically.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We’ve submitted the application, and an inspector will be coming before long.”
“... You’re proceeding step by step very well.”
Impressed, he patted my head and climbed onto the truck.
“Maybe it’s a good thing that it was your family who took over my farm.”
“... Please drive safely.”
After the truck carrying the vinegar left, I turned my body and spoke to my collapsed friends.
“Good work. I’ll make sure to pay you well. Let’s go eat.”
But their expressions were somehow awkward.
“We’re eating meat! Not Korean Food, meat!”
Only after I shouted did the two North American guys, who didn’t even know their own appetites, get up.
“What are you talking about? I liked it.”
“Would you believe me if I said I’d been waiting for lunchtime since dawn?”
After taking the two guys telling obvious lies back home, washing up, and coming out to the yard, Dad was heating up charcoal.
Since grilling meat over charcoal is a widespread culture even in the United States, getting charcoal was not particularly difficult.
“Just wait a bit!”
Perhaps because he had made a lot of money, both Dad’s and Mom’s faces were full of vitality.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She’s in the kitchen washing vegetables.”
“Got it.”
I seated my friends at the table, went inside to help Mom wash the vegetables, and carried out rice, salt, ssamjang, and so on. When I piled vegetables up on the table like a mountain while the two friends were there to eat meat, they rolled their eyes.
“Why this...?”
“You’ll eat it. You guys can just eat the meat.”
Soon, the charcoal heated up, and as the meat was placed on the grill, it began to make a sizzling, delicious sound.
“I like meat. It’s incredibly cheap. I bought 5 kg, and it was only 250 dollars. Even though it’s prime grade.”
Dad was beaming, saying he had bought good meat cheaply.
“It’s definitely nice that meat is cheap in the United States.”
“Now then, you guys eat it like a steak, right? Go on, try it.”
When the well-grilled meat was cut into appropriate pieces and served, Jacob and Armando began devouring the meat mindlessly. Our family, on the other hand, grilled the meat a bit thinner, cooked it just right, cut it with scissors, placed it on plates, and ate it.
At first, my friends who did not know why we had brought vegetables found it strange when they saw me putting Ssamjang on top of Lettuce and eating it.
“What kind of sauce is that?”
“If you dip it, it’s pretty good.”
“Really? It looks spicy.”
“It’s not spicy at all. If that’s spicy, you’re not even a man.”
At that, perhaps feeling provoked, Jacob did exactly what I did, putting meat on Lettuce and dipping it generously in Ssamjang. Then he slowly brought it to his mouth and bit into half of it.
“Don’t cut it! One bite. In Korea, if you cut a Ssam, people say you’re uneducated.”
“......”
In the end, after stuffing it all in at once, Jacob’s expression gradually showed satisfaction.
“This sauce... it’s amazing?”
“You should eat it in moderation. The Korean market is far away.”
After seeing Jacob’s attempt, Armando challenged himself the same way, and the two of them ended up emptying half a container of Ssamjang.
When we were comfortably full, Armando asked,
“Is it really okay not to go to Chloe’s farm?”
“All the pest control is done, right? There’s no real reason to go. I could help with the harvest if she asks, but it’s a busy season for me too, and I don’t have much leeway. I can’t skip school either.”
For college admission, I cannot neglect my studies.
“She looked kind of anxious.”
“She’ll do well. And she’s anxious because it hasn’t been long since she started working the farm herself. From what I can tell, the harvest shouldn’t be a big problem, well...”
I was curious about the result too. If Chloe wins, we can put Cherry wine into the tanks that will soon be emptied.
“If Chloe wins, does that mean you’ll start making Cherry wine?”
“Probably?”
At that moment, Dad, who had been listening quietly, asked,
“Cherry wine? Who is Chloe?”
“Ah... she’s a school friend who runs a cherry farm. Her dad made them compete over who would inherit the farm. So the side with the larger harvest wins, and I helped her a bit. In return, if she wins, I get the cherries at cost.”
“How much?”
“It was about 1 ton, but her father liked my advice, so he said 2 tons.”
“Hmm... that’s not a very large amount?”
“I guess? I can’t exactly ask for 10 tons at cost, no matter how much I helped...”
“That’s true.”
This time, Jacob cut in.
“Is 1 ton a small amount?”
“When you make wine, the minimum is usually set in units of a thousand bottles, right? That’s about the amount needed to make that much. Roughly 1.3 tons?”
“But your farm also has to make wine after the harvest season ends, right?”
“The cherry harvest season is May and June. But our harvest season is late September to October.”
Jacob, who now knew quite a bit about farming, tilted his head.
“That’s pretty late?”
“Cabernet Sauvignon itself is slower to harvest compared to other varieties. And regions with high temperatures and lots of sunlight harvest in mid-September, but our area, which isn’t far from the coast, has to harvest later. Especially if it’s at a higher elevation, it’s actually right to harvest in mid-October.”
“Ah...”
“Anyway, if that happens, the tanks will be empty for five months, so if the timing works out, we can run a batch of Cherry wine once. If Chloe loses, it can’t be helped.”
“That’s too bad. Couldn’t you make more vinegar?”
“The previous farm owner sold all the grapes that had good market value. And the parts that were completely rotten and unusable couldn’t even be used for vinegar, so they were thrown away, which reduced the quantity a lot. I’m also disappointed that I couldn’t make more.”
“Then if all the grapes from your farm had been made into vinegar, how much could you have made?”
I roughly calculated in my head and then said,
“Probably over 50,000 liters.”
At the mention of 50,000 liters, my parents were more surprised than my friends. That was because the vinegar in the winery tanks had been 20,000 liters.
“50,000 liters?”
“My goodness, that’s more than double?”
My parents, who had been happy just earning 140,000 dollars, opened their mouths wide at the thought that they might have earned close to 300,000 dollars in their heads.
But I chuckled and said to them,
“If we make wine, we can earn at least twice as much as what I just calculated in my head.”
Mom grabbed my hand tightly.
“Mom is so proud of our son.”
In truth, Mom had supported me becoming an accountant. Like most parents, she was very pleased with the idea of her child working a white-collar job. But only later did I realize that meant living off the lives of Dad and Mom, who labored on the farm.
“You can be proud, but there’s going to be a lot of work because of you, son.”
“Mom isn’t tired at all.”
“Dad isn’t tired either.”
Just as emotion was about to seep into my chest, Armando’s mournful voice was heard.
“I’m kind of tired though. Those boxes were really heavy. Ah... my shoulder...”
“... I was going to give it to you anyway, the day’s pay...”
I gave the two friends 200 dollars each as pay for the work they did in the morning and sent them home. Jacob and Armando were so satisfied with the pay compared to the work they had done that they even asked me to call them again next time.
Then, after packing a few more things, I entered the farm together with my parents.
“We’ve firmed up the soil and given the fertilizer well, so what’s next?”
Dad, who had studied a lot, answered immediately.
“We have to water.”
“That’s right. Sunlight and water are essential for plants to grow. But most fruits are sensitive to water. Simply watering well may be good for growing fruit, but it can’t make the flavor develop properly.”
“Really? Mr. John Anderson had it set so that water comes out when it’s time, so we’ve been doing it that way too. Is there a problem?”
“Rather than a problem, it’s that it would be good to take a few more measures to make good wine. If you give the vines a bit of stress from water deficiency, interestingly, they accumulate anthocyanins and tannins in the grape skins. And those two components are the core elements of wine.”
“Oh-, really?”
Standing in front of the grapevines, I pointed at the Drip Irrigation hose and said,
“That releases water according to a set schedule, right?”
“That’s right.”
“From now on, before watering, we need to check whether the vines are actually thirsty.”
Mom, who had been listening, lifted the sun cap that housewives usually wear and asked,
“How do you check?”
I showed the large bag I was holding and took out a silver foil plastic bag from my pocket.
“From now on, we need these two things.”
***** For extra chapters, you can read them on my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/HangukTranslations.
Join our Discord for announcements or to report any mistakes.